Complaint Review: American credit solutions Assail Inc.

I started working at this company as a very impressionable 17 year old looking for some extra money during the summer. I remember being trained about my noble duties for helping the downtrodden masses to reestablish their damaged credit with about 12 other people. Many of them were of questionable gender, intelligence or odor, yet all were hired. This was a bad sign, but I tried to keep a good attitude.

I asked a lot of questions while working there. Maybe my conscience is just more prominent than other people's. I asked why we said we were from "First Choice Processing Center" instead of Assail Inc. or why another employee said he was calling from a bank when we were clearly a call-center, and I was told to just get back to work. My suspicions grew and after some research I found our company had dozens of names/thousands of complaints in just 4 years.

One of my friends was making insanely good scratch there as a manager, and he wrote me off as some crazy conspiracy kid when I came to him with my findings.

Something didn't sit right with me: the insanely fast and quiet recording that people agree to in verification, the fact that we get severely repremanded for calling it a "credit card", the person who told me I was full of sh** and knew loads about our company when I called him saying he'd been pre-approved for "blah blah blah"; it all pointed to one thing-- SCAMOLA!

The final straw for me was when I was having a particularly slow sales day, and they put some blubbery sales guru named "Bob" next to me. Bob assessed my situation, and said
"James, you have conscience issues don't you?"
I responded, "Yeah, I think I do."
His reply made leaving the company easy: "Man, I waved bye bye to my conscience years ago".

Anyone who is pleading Dan, Alec, Clif, Brian or any other Assail Driver/Manager/CEO's innocence is in gross denial. I wasn't even out of highschool, not privy to hardly any sensitive information and even I had an inkling that people were getting a worthless piece of plastic that's impossible to cancel. The administrative staff of assail are guilty.

Even some of the lower-paid employees could smell the roses and milked it for as long as they could. They knew what was up and they silenced that little voice in their head that tells them not to take advantage of their fellow man. I left after 2 and a half months of screwing people over on the phone, and I wish there was something I could do about it. The least those weasels can do is own up to their shady behavior and try to do something decent for once.

So I have been silent for 4 years, and I want to at least take this opportunity to speak up and say something here because it is something that really upsets me.

Brian Schoefield was an amazing man. He was an amazing friend, and I do not for one second believe that after knowing him for the 5 years that I did, that he knew or intended to rip anyone off.

I was the I.T. behind Infinium Inc, and Market-reps. I believe that in the position I was in which involved dealing with and housing the data, as well as sending it to the appropirate locations, I would know if something was not right.

I spent 4+ years working for Brian, Where I befriended him and his family as well as all of the people involved in our call center. I believe in my heart that Brian was never anything but honest and that he tried his best to take care of all of his employees like family. I can not tell you how many times he allowed me more slack than normal, or hand outs to help me in times of need. He was always a genuine friend in whom I could confide and in whom I could trust to be there for me.

I also want to state that without the knowledge he allowed me to pick up, and the ability to progress in my field of I.T. I would not be working for the largest Linux vendor in the world today. The benefits and gifts that he gave me are not measurable.

I feel for him, I feel for his family. I can not even remotely comprehend what it must feel like to be in his shoes and to constantly have to defend ones self against these over zealous lies.


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Kyle Kimoto on the other hand is a crook. He always was, and always will be. It is in his blood and all you need to do is be in a room with him to feel it.

I am probably one of the most objectionable people involved here as I was FIRED before 2 months before this raid happened and was forced to defend myself in a court agains people that I beleived were friends. I have been upset about this far too long and I want to barry the hatchet so to speak.

This all said, I know that regardless of anything anyone says, Brian and his family are wonderful people who will always have a place in my heart.


Brian: I wish you the best. Thank you for allowing me to start my career, for trusting me and for believing in me.

I love it when people claim that they knew what was going on. I've spent the last two years not knowing what went on. I NEVER ONCE cheated reps out of commission. I went overboard on too many occasions because of situations or friendships. I NEVER ONCE took money from any rep in an attempt to "scam" the employee. You've contacted one old customer while i have attempted to contact thousands. Give me a break. YOu have no idea what i know and don't know. One day when you have your own company and employees to worry about I hope they spit on you when you try to help them. I hope that when you go out of your way to attempt to make their jobs better that they make up lies behind your back. Best yet, I hope everything bad happens to you on the front page of the paper and no good is ever talked about. Then and only then will you have the ability to judge me and say what you say. Like I said before and I will say it again: I never ever once knew of any fraud and to this day I am not convinced that fraud took place. I still don't know what happened exactly. goodnight.

As a former employee of Assail Inc, (I met my husband there) I would offer the opinion that Kyle Kimoto and the upper management of Assail knew darn well what was going on.

I worked there for 6 months..longer than most people do. Almost all of the night employees were high schoolers or kids putting themselves through college.
The morning shift people were grown-ups who couldn't get a "real job". I was on the morning shift for about 2 months.

I didn't work under Kyle, but I worked for his partner (they split before the feds came in) Brian Schofield.
We told customers that for $219.95 they could get 3 credit cards to build their credit.
I believed it. I believed we were helping people. After a while I noticed that I and my coworkers were being stiffed on our commissions. I started to think, if they were stiffing US, what were they doing to people in other states..

Then I saw a notice in the local paper...saying that anything that promised you a "guaranteed" credit card if you gave them money WAS A SCAM. It is against federal law to do this and this was EXACTLY what I was being paid to do.

I quit that day..I spend 2 days trying to remember the name of the last customer I called, Keith something-or-other in Klamath Falls OR. I search google, call everyone with his last name, trying to find him and tell him to close his bank account or whatever he has to do before they debit the money.

I still feel pretty sick about all of it.

And do you know what..when the FBI auctioned off Kyle Kimoto's house I TOURED it...13,000 sq ft, 12 bedrooms, a full gym, a playground, 4 studies. How much of that did I personally pay for? I'm sorry to anyone I talked to...I wish I could take it back.

As a former employee of Assail Inc, (I met my husband there) I would offer the opinion that Kyle Kimoto and the upper management of Assail knew darn well what was going on.

I worked there for 6 months..longer than most people do. Almost all of the night employees were high schoolers or kids putting themselves through college.
The morning shift people were grown-ups who couldn't get a "real job". I was on the morning shift for about 2 months.

I didn't work under Kyle, but I worked for his partner (they split before the feds came in) Brian Schofield.
We told customers that for $219.95 they could get 3 credit cards to build their credit.
I believed it. I believed we were helping people. After a while I noticed that I and my coworkers were being stiffed on our commissions. I started to think, if they were stiffing US, what were they doing to people in other states..

Then I saw a notice in the local paper...saying that anything that promised you a "guaranteed" credit card if you gave them money WAS A SCAM. It is against federal law to do this and this was EXACTLY what I was being paid to do.

I quit that day..I spend 2 days trying to remember the name of the last customer I called, Keith something-or-other in Klamath Falls OR. I search google, call everyone with his last name, trying to find him and tell him to close his bank account or whatever he has to do before they debit the money.

I still feel pretty sick about all of it.

And do you know what..when the FBI auctioned off Kyle Kimoto's house I TOURED it...13,000 sq ft, 12 bedrooms, a full gym, a playground, 4 studies. How much of that did I personally pay for? I'm sorry to anyone I talked to...I wish I could take it back.

Charges against Kyle Kimoto and Assail Inc. have been settled and no one is being indicted because we were innocent! You can contact the Spectrum News in St. George Utah.
Signed, a very happy employee who always told everyone we were innocent!

For Release: January 17, 2003

FTC Charges Telemarketing Network with Selling Bogus Advance-Fee Credit Card Packages

The Federal Trade Commission has filed charges against seven corporations and nine individuals, the Assail Telemarketing Network, for engaging in deceptive and unfair activities in the marketing of advance-fee credit card packages under the names Advantage Capital, Capital First, and Premier One. The Commission alleges that the defendants operate an advance-fee credit card scam through a network of boiler rooms, Canadian front men, and outsourced fulfillment and customer service centers. According to the FTC, the scam targets people with poor credit histories, offering credit cards that never materialize, while upselling various benefit packages through an incomprehensible, computer-generated "verification" tape.

On January 9, 2003, the court temporarily halted the defendants' operation, froze their assets, and appointed a receiver to take over the corporate defendants.

The complaint names: Assail, Inc., headquartered in St. George, Utah, its president, Kyle Kimoto, and two of its officers, Cliff Dunn, and Mike Henriksen; Infinium, Inc., Market-Reps.com, Inc., headquartered in Cedar City, Utah, and their president Brian Schofield; Specialty Outsourcing Solutions, Inc., headquartered in Waco, Texas, and its officers, Jay Lankford, and Lee Murphy; Summit Communications International, Inc., purportedly headquartered in Carson City, Nevada, and doing business as Advantage Capital, and its president, Matthew h*o; Capital First Benefits, Inc., headquartered in Miami, Florida, and its president, Ben Lee; and Premier One Benefits, Inc., based in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and its president, Johnson Salanga.

The FTC alleges that the defendants telemarketed various products and services to U.S. consumers, or provided substantial assistance, facilitation, or support to the telemarketers or sellers of such products or services. Assail, Infinium, and Market-Reps.com provide telemarketing and other services through their own boilerrooms and employees, and through dozens of contract boiler rooms in the United States, Canada, India, and Caribbean countries.

According to the FTC, the scam works as follows: the defendants contact consumers with poor credit records, refer to their purported prior applications for credit, and tell them that they are now guaranteed to receive a credit card. The credit card packages are often sold under the names of Advantage Capital, Capital First, and Premier One. In fact, the defendants do not provide credit cards to consumers. Instead, they use an incomprehensible, digitally recorded "verification" process to conceal that the proffered credit card is actually a "benefit" package that includes an application for a stored value "pay as you go"card. After consumers submit the application, even this card also fails to materialize. In addition, the defendants slip in multiple "upsells" of expensive and dubious products at the end of the verification process. The defendants then debit consumers' bank accounts for the upsells, sometimes with additional recurring monthly charges, without the consumers' authorization. The FTC alleges that consumers commonly incur debits against their bank accounts for approximately $174 for the "credit card" package and an additional $50-$100 for each upsell.

The FTC alleges that when consumers try to cancel their purchases and prevent further debits, they are frequently met with a well-orchestrated "customer service" scheme designed to frustrate consumers' attempts to obtain refunds and cancellations. Even when consumers are successful in canceling some of their debits, the defendants often fail to cancel future debits for other products purportedly purchased during the telemarketing call. As a result, consumers' accounts are later debited for additional sales about which they were not aware.

The complaint alleges that the defendants violated the FTC Act, the Telemarketing Sales Rule, and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act by:

making deceptive misrepresentations and engaging in unfair billing practices;
assisting and facilitating others in fraudulently inducing consumers to pay for goods or services, and requesting payment upfront for the goods or services; and obtaining bank account numbers from consumers by means of false, fictitious or fraudulent representations.

The Commission vote to authorize staff to file the complaint in federal district court was 5-0. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division, on January 9, 2003, under seal. The seal was lifted on January 16, 2003.

I too have done some research, and I have to say that I jumped the gun a little. I know that Infinium Inc. and its affiliates are only call centers, but I don't know about Assail. Not enough to make any kind of judgement.

I am certain that in regards to the article and what it claims, that Infinium Inc. and its affiliates are innocent. I am positive. I don't want them getting any kind of bad name because of some false accusations. For as long as the feds have supposedly been investigating this, they sure are uninformed. I have no resect for them. I'm only concerned because I think it sucks for someone to have to go through something like this for no reason.

To say no one knew what was happening or innocent is a farce. This is a prime example of people getting involved in things that aren't on the up and up and really do hurt innocent people for there own greed. This kind of stuff needs to stop in any form.

I'm tired of receiving all the solicitations from people with the intent to deceive knowing or not knowing that they are a part of it. All the people involved should be ashamed of the misery you have brought to many people just trying to get by.

You almost got me, but I found this site and started reading about this. Hopefully and finally, all the people that wrote in can have a much deserved sigh of relieve that action may be taken to stop this kind of stuff in the future. There are other scams out there, you people that are involved knowing or not knowing should get a conscience and do the right thing to your fellow man or woman. Good on the people who are taking steps to prevent this stuff. Thanks much, Mike

In regards to the article posted; please don't misunderstand the involvement of these telemarketing companies. The companies mentioned in the article do not sell their own products. They are the middle men. Companies hire them to call. I understand that employees of these companies are confused and maybe angry, but I am confident that many employees of these companies themselves didn't understand how minimal their involvement was. It's a sad thing that in this country we are apparently not innocent until proven guilty, but guilty until proven innocent. Have we lost all faith in the human race? If there was any wrong doing, Infinium Inc., its affiliates and Assail Inc. were not aware. I truly believe this.