Complaint Review: CIS Worldwide

Dear Teresa,

On behalf of all of us at CIS Worldwide, we understand that sometimes it is difficult to put your trust in an online company. We assure you we stand behind our product by providing our customers with a user friendly members' section interface and easy access to our professional and courteous customer support staff.

I believe you may have misunderstood the package purchased.

The unlimited basic search section is added as a bonus to our premium package customers.


The 'Unlimited' search option allows for basic people search, basic background, landline phone searches, and basic search by address as part of our membership.
Unlimited reports may include: Address history, age, date of birth, marital status, phone number(s), possible relatives and associates, and property records.
Your CIS Worldwide balance gets debited for each Direct Search conducted.
You may also refer to our video tutorials for more information.

Please also note that our billing structure is clearly disclosed in our Terms and Agreements. All customers must agree to these Terms and Agreements before proceeding to check out.

CIS Worldwide is a provider of information gathered from publicly available data. We do not create, verify, or guarantee the accuracy or the amount of information traced through our service. Public records come from: censuses, newspaper subscriptions, postal services, voter registration and various other public agencies. As an information broker, the data provided by our service is largely dependent on these public sources. In some cases, these sources can be slow to update their records. As you can understand, some updates are often out of our immediate control. Data availability may also be determined by federal, state and local regulations.

CIS Worldwide cannot guarantee that you will find the exact information that you are looking for as we do not control the information that is available in any way.

This is clearly disclosed in all of our Terms and Conditions pages.

I would like to urge any CIS Worldwide customer needing any assistance to please contact customer support via email at support@cisworldwide.com. We are committed to assisting our customers through any and all issues they may encounter using our services. We're here to help!

From all of us at CIS Worldwide, wishing you a good day and the best of luck in all of your future investigative endeavors.

Well, I just received a "response" (if you count a cut-and-pasted portion of their "terms and agreements" as a response, of course!) to my request for a refund. Basically, what their response says is "Ha-Ha - **** You; we already have your money!"

Apparently, their "customer service" department consists of a person (not even sure if it IS a real person) names "Faith Osborn". Faith spends her day at work copying their "Terms of Service" and pasting it into a generic email, then hitting the bulk email option "Send To All". This is what their assistance consists of; in fact, I received the SAME response from "Faith" upon requesting that she provide me with her Supervisor's name and contact info! Ah, well - I guess it would be easier just to let you all see for yourselves these emails. Here goes:
-------------------------------
My Orginal Request:

Hello -
Last night I purchased the unlimited access membership for 29.95 + the 9.95 special. I attempted to conduct a background check several times; however, was not able to access any real info other than the name and address which I already had and could have easily been found in the basic searches. When I purchased the membership I was under the impression that I had unrestricted access for a year; however, when I attempted to re-submit my background search info it showed that I have no more "credit" on my acct to do so.

I realize that it was my responsibility to research and understand what I was purchasing; however, I truly thought that I had. I am extremely unsatisfied with my purchase and would like to find out if a refund could be issued. Thank you and I look forward to your response.

Sincerely - Kristi


CIS's "Faith Osborn - Customer Service Guru" Response:

Dear Customer,
In reply to your request please note that our billing structure is clearly stated in our Terms and Agreements. You agreed to these Terms and Agreements before you were allowed to subscribe to our service.

Unlimited members are provided with unrestricted access to our basic search section only.

Unlimited applies only to our unlimited membership section.

The "Unlimited" search option allows for basic people search, background, phone searches, and search by address as part of our membership.

Unlimited reports may include: Address history, age, date of birth, marital status, phone number(s), possible relatives and associates, and property records.

Your CIS Worldwide balance gets debited for each Direct Search conducted.

You may also refer to our video tutorials for more information, please go to: http://www.CISworldwide.com/customersupport.php



PLEASE NOTE !

You are the only person who has access to your account. Be careful where you click and read instructions prior to conducting a search! Careless use of your account can and most likely will, lead to the loss of your funds! CIS is not responsible for such careless use of our searches on your behalf.

Read instructions before starting a search and be careful where you click! Careless use of your account can, and most likely will, lead to the loss of your funds. CIS Worldwide is not responsible for such careless use of our searches.

You can always add more funds to your account by clicking on the green "Buy Search Points" icon, located in the top right-hand corner of the members' area.


CIS Worldwide cannot guarantee that you will find the exact information that you are looking for, as we do not have any control over the information available. The preliminary search finds and shows information under the last name or any other credential that you provide, but this does not guarantee that the information found is connected to your search.


CIS Worldwide is not a consumer reporting agency as defined under the Fair Credit Reporting Act ("FCRA"),

and the information in our databases has not been collected in whole or in part for the purpose of furnishing consumer reports,

as defined in the FCRA. Website information cannot be used to: (a) establish an individual's legibility for personal credit or insurance;

(b) assess risks associated with existing consumer credit obligations, (c) evaluate an individual for employment, promotion,

reassignment or retention (including employment of household workers such a nannies, housekeepers, or contractors),

or (c) in conjunction with assessing the merits of entering into any other personal business transaction with another individual).


All of the information in this message is clearly stated on our "Terms and Conditions" page.


Sincerely,
Faith Osborn
Customer Support Representative

My Second Email Response: ---------------------------

Faith,

Please provide me with your supervisor's name and contact information. Your form-letter styled response indicates that your company:

a) is extremely aware of the inadequate services and inaccurate/incomplete information being provided
b) intentionally continues to produce misleading advertisements and false claims of their services
c) clearly anticipates overwhelming customer complaints in response to deceiptful product info
d) has no intention of providing any type of solution; service or support once purchase is complete and money is collected.

Thank you.
__________________


CIS Representative "Faith" Response. . . . . .

Well, actully it was the EXACT SAME response as her first!

I must say; I am truly amazed by the absolute audacity this company has to belittle and scold customers who question their services.
Example: "CIS Worldwide is not responsible for such careless use of our searches."

Yes, it is true - shame on me for not reading closely enough. Fair enough. However; their "disclaimers" should just be truthful and read: At CIS Worldwide there is NO such thing as a "SATISFIED CUSTOMER".

This is a lesson learned for me; however, I am not going to give up on getting a refund! Not only a refund; but I will also continue to spread the word and report WHEREVER possible that CIS Worldwide is a SCAM!

I was also ripped-off by this "CIS Worldwide" -- which is actually the REAL company behind all of the following online investigation sites:

GovernmentRegistry.org
CourtRecords.org
ReverseMobile.com
Webstigate.com
CourtRegistry.org
CivilRecords.org

I paid $39.95 for the "Unlimited Access" membership and got NOTHING. Well no, I take that back -- I got a name and a few possible relatives names from their so-called "comprehensive background check" report. I would hate to think what their "basic background check" looks like!! Not only did I receive a basically blank report; I also found out that I had used all of my "points" to get it!! I was not aware that there was a limited-use on my "unlimited" membership. I blame myself for not reading closely enough and for trusting such a site; however, that is still NO EXCUSE for the pathetic "reports" they try to pass off as complete checks. Also, no customer service department exists, at least, not as far as I know considering I have emailed them multiple times and still have received NO RESPONSE. It is just flat out wrong and corrupt. I intend to fight for every penny I paid to these scammers and I will continue to expose them for the fraudulant theives that they are no matter what. Regardless; a refund is not going to change the fact that these people should be shut down and forced to pay back every dime they took from every single person. I have been contemplating different possible actions for recourse in an attempt to force a response out of them, so any suggestions would be much appreciated!