Complaint Review: Fareway Market

I wrote a check to a local business in Onalaska, WI on December 20, 2017.  On January 3, 2018, my neighbor who works at the business called me and said my check was sent back but no further details or information was available.  I called my bank, Wells Fargo, immediately and validated, as I knew, that there were sufficient funds in the account.  Wells Fargo also checked all of their transaction logs and could not find any record evidence of an attempt to cash my check or that Wells Fargo did anything to stop an attempt.  I called the local business back and told them to try to cash the check again.  The next day the check was cashed and the funds were withdrawn.

On January 9, 2018 I looked at my checking account and saw that a group called Payliance tried to withdraw $40 form my checking account through ACH. When I got home from work later that day, I had a letter in the mail from a group called Payliance saying they were a debt collection agency, I owned money to the local business and they were charging me a $40 service fee.  I immediately called my bank, Wells Fargo, filed a fraud complaint based on that transaction attempt (it was still pending so they were able to stop) because I have never done business with a Payliance and have not authorized them to access my checking account.  I also stopped all future payments to Payliance.

On January 10, 2018, I called Tacheena Hamilton, Collections Manager (614) 472-4443, at Payliance to inquire about the letter and the attempt to take money out of my checking account, Tacheena was rude and arrogant as to be expected from a collections agency.  She said Payliance had a right to access my checking account because the local business had something posted on the wall of the business saying that such a right existed for a non-sufficients funds/returned check.  Nothing of any such nature was disclosed or told to me when I did business with the local company.  Tacheena also admitted that Payliance may have already withdrawn the amount for the original check from my account and had not yet paid the original vendor/local business but she couldn't do anything about that or help me because that was a different department.  We then argued a bit and she hung up on me.  She would then accept no further calls from me.  As I couldn't then no longer contact Payliance, I could not get contact inforatmion for the other area of the business that had cashed my original check and was holding the money.

I then did some interenet research and found this posting about Fareway foods in Iowa and Payliance.  This is exactly what happened to me so this must be an on-going scam/fraud by Payliance.  I am not accusing the local business in my case of being in on the scam.  In fact the local business said that they do not drectly do business through Payliance but rather use a local bank called River Bank in the La Crosse area and thay River Bank uses Payliance.  This makes it even more tenuous how Payliance would think they have a right to access my checking account directly to withdraw a "service fee".  

I believe this is a scam/fraud and is iillegal.  As Payliance is based in Columbus, OH and sent me a letter via the US Postal Service this is now both a matter for the state of Wisconsin and the Federal Govt.

I have filed a report with the WI Attorney General's Office and the US Postal Service Fraud Division.  As mentioned before, I stopped all payments to Payliance with my bank and created a fraud claim with the bank as well.  All of this is documented and I have records of correspondance and transactions.

This seems ripe for a class action lawsuit if others across the midwest or possibly the country have dealt with this behavour by Payliance.

I have asked my local business and Park Bank to stop using Payliance for this reason.