Freedom Gold ripoff, claims free gifts, muffles service charge Largo Florida
About a month ago, my dorm room telephone rang. As usual, I answered the phone. It was one of those annoying credit card companies telling me that I had been approved for something and that I will be receiving all of these wonderful gifts for free in the mail. They asked me for my address, my bank routing numbers, telephone number, etc. I did not give out my social security number.
The first part of the conversation where the woman described that everything would be free and that I would be able to cancel at any time was not recorded. The only thing that was recorded from the conversation was, of course, my bank account numbers and the information they needed. They also managed to muffle the statement that after 60 days they would charge $149.00 to my account. (The only reason I found out it was such a number was because I called the company back and had them replay the recording for me. It took them seven replays before I actually caught where the woman muffled the price of this ridiculous scheme.)
This is not a new scam, stores to this with magazine subscriptions if you spend a certain amount of money, but those are no where near the sum of $149.00. I have no idea what they do with this massive service charge, but I do not think it is worth it. I am currently disputing this with the company and my bank, and hopefully I will be able to receive that money back. It goes a long way for a college student.
It is my fault for being stupid enough to give such personal information over the phone to some company I have never heard of, but I hope that this enlightens people and helps them out.
Kerri
Elmwood Park, Illinois
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Kerri
Elmwood Park,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Thanx CharterOne
#2Author of original report
Fri, June 09, 2006
After having delt with the rude customer service at Freedom Gold, I called my bank to see if there was any possible way to retreive my money. They had me come from school to my home in order to file an affidavit. I closed the account that the theives had taken the money from. Literally an hour or so later, they had attempted to write another check out of my account. Luckily, I closed it just in time. So I expected nothing to happen with the affidavit. About two months later, I checked my online statement and the money was back in the account! (How CharterOne put it in a closed account I will never know, but the money was there!!!) Then, a day later, my bank called me to ask me which account I wanted the money transferred into. I didn't even have to come in. I thanked him profusely for the amazing work he had done, for I was sure it was a lost cause. I had previously been working on a nice but strong letter to send to the company to get my money back, but it proved to be unnecesary. I wish all of you good luck with your attempts to get your money back, and I suggest if your banks give you problems and you live in the Chicagoland area, switch to CharterOne.