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American Finasco Debt Resolution Specialists ripoff Caused Excessive Debt Only Winner was American Finasco Giving an open checkbook to a company is a difficult lesson to be learned. Conroe Texas
If you are reading this, it is more than likely that you performed a search for corporate debt resolution specialists on an internet search engines and it sent you to this article. Please read this carefully before contracting this or any debt management company to assist in relieving the burden of a negative cash flow situation. My experience with American Finasco and one of their competitors is a sure indicator that there is a difference between commercial debt resolution specialists.
I contracted American Finasco on June 5, 2002. At that time, my consultant reviewed the total amount of debt with which I was having difficulty and discussed the total dollars I felt would be available on a monthly basis to pay both my debt and the American Finasco fee.
The fee for their service is a percentage of the total they saved during negotiations with my creditors. It appeared that their fee, plus the total settlement with the vendor, would always be less than the total amount that was originally owed to the creditor.
We agreed that $1,000.00 would be my budget for June and the budget for the following 11 months would be $2,000.00 each month. That budgeted total was to include the fee American Finasco was to earn for their negotiation services. These totals were part of an agreed upon contract between American Finasco and my business.
Within the first few months, American Finasco made settlements on several accounts that resulted in an average payment for the first four months of $4,022 per month. The fee to American Finasco was picked up immediately after the settlements were made so they can be assured of receiving their fees. Although I communicated to both of my primary contacts on a regular basis, no changes were made to correct this matter, as they were not allowed to make any decisions pertaining to a resolution.
In the event you are seriously considering using this company, I would be more than happy to discuss the facts involved in this matter and forward all of the specifics of my experience with you. I tried to work something out quickly with the President of the company and even utilized the BBB without any success. I only advise you to utilize a service that guarantees a dollar amount from your budget on a monthly basis. Giving an open checkbook to a company is a difficult lesson to be learned.
Although I am certain the services of this company may work well for some businesses, please be very careful of the pitfalls you may fall into as a result of the emotional stress you feel will be relieved. Fortunately I found another company who is extremely more suitable for resolving my debt and maintaining my budget.
Joe
Downers Grove, Illinois
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Don
TEMPE,Arizona,
United States of America
How do you know who to believe?
#3Consumer Comment
Tue, October 23, 2012
How do you know who to believe? If they have a rip off report against them they
must be bad. I especially dont like the comment The fee to American Finasco was picked up immediately after the settlements were made so they can be assured of receiving their fees. It sounds like all of these companies are the same; they just care about lining their own pockets.
Marsha
Conroe,Texas,
U.S.A.
We were found to be non-fault by the BBB Please read why
#3REBUTTAL Owner of company
Fri, February 17, 2006
The facts (as we see them):
1. American Finasco was hired by Bell Graphics and Joe Bellavia on June 5, 2002 to assist his company in restructuring debt in the approximate amount of $15,000.00 representing three different creditors.
2. As Mr. Bellavia stated, he set up a monthly budget amount of $2,000.00 to handle the projected payments to creditors and to pay our fees.
3. On or about June 26, 2002 American Finasco settled one of his accounts, CIT Equipment Leasing for 3 payments of $2,812.00 each. Mr. Bellavia was contacted before we completed this settlement because the payments to the creditor exceeded our monthly budget. Mr. Bellavia advised us to go ahead and complete the settlement.
4. From June 29 through September 5 Mr. Bellavia assigned American Finasco an additional 10 creditors for additional $16,000.00 of debt. As these accounts were assigned, Mr. Bellavia did not increase his monthly budget as we would normally require. Unfortunately, I cannot find evidence that American Finasco followed up to get him to increase the budget.
5. During the month of July, 2002 American Finasco settled six more accounts. Many of these settlements were approved from our initial work since it was difficult to retract offers we had already made.
6. On September 26, 2002 Mr. Bellavia wrote to my sales agent, Chuck Yerbic advising he was not happy with our service and that we were instructed to discontinue all efforts on his accounts.
7. When the September letter came to me, I immediately called Mr. Bellavia to try to solve any problem and keep him as a client. At that time, he informed me that he had hired another Debt Management Company to assist him and explained why he was unhappy with our service.
8. I informed Mr. Bellavia that I would be more than happy to re-work some of our settlements so we could reduce the monthly demands on his cash flow. He advised us that he could not have us do that because he had hired another firm and that would be a conflict of interest.
9. With his refusal to let us continue I advised Mr. Bellavia that I would refund his $500.00 retainer in full, even though company policy is to keep the retainer if we are pulled off a project. (A copy of my letter is attached)
10. Mr. Bellavia that wrote to me on October 2 asking that American Finasco refund $4,362.79 to help him be able to meet the creditor payments. There are three major problems with his request:
American Finasco never assumes any financial responsibility for making creditor payments and this in effect would be doing that. It is strictly our client's responsibility to keep up with the creditor payments.
This would also be refunding fees that were earned in full as per our contract with Mr. Bellavia.
He made his request after firing us. In effect, he is asking us to help fund the activity now being handled by a competitor.
Action our company has taken:
As documented above, American Finasco did everything we could to save the relationship-short of loaning his company money. I spent a great deal of time talking with Mr. Bellavia from September 26 October 8 to search for a solution.
My solution was to refund his retainer, which by policy we did no have to do. Unfortunately, Mr. Bellavia had already closed all reasonable avenues for American Finasco to pursue to solve his creditor problems.