Complaint Review: Home Protector

Home Protector, Home & Auto Protector Mailing literature stating enrollment when I did not, stating I had authorized a checking account debit when I had not, a blatant scam operation! consumer rip-off fraud Jacksonville Florida .....

I came home from work today to discover in the mail an oversized envelope chock-full of literature listing "Home & Auto Protector Insurance" with a myriad of "benefits" that read as if I had enrolled for it. Normally I would tear this kind of junk up and toss it in the trash, but the amount of items enclosed struck me as far more than the normal junk mail, so I read through some of it. The main sheets, other than a slew of "benefits"-listing sheets, was vague to say the least. There was a "membership" card enclosed with a member number, etc.

The more I read the more I became concerned that something was unusual. I had certainly never heard of the company, and I'm a person who despises telemarketers or any service where you sign up for this sort of thing on the Internet or by phone and never do so.

I called the company phone number listed and got a customer service person (I hate to call it "service") who seemed to have a difficult time answering my question as to why I received the packet when I had never heard of them, much less "enrolled" in their program. After repeatedly attempting to go over my "benefits", and very obviously reading from a script, I got him to say that I had enrolled in the program through a company called "Consumer Sense", which I have also never heard of. When I asked how I supposedly enrolled in this program, he said it "could have been through a telemarketer on the phone or through a Website".

When I explained that I never do so and certainly did not, he again said that I had. I asked how this membership was supposedly going to be paid, and he said that I had already paid. I asked what method of payment I had supposedly used and he said a checking account debit. I assured him I had not done so and asked when I had supposedly paid this. He stated January 3rd. (Today is January 15th.)

While I had him on the phone my wife pulled up my checking account using my bank's Internet online banking and looked for a hit for the amount he stated had been approved, $298.00. There had not been a debit made for that amount or to an unknown entity. I told him this and asked to speak with his supervisor.

I was left on hold for 10 minutes, so I hung up and called back. I got another person who wanted to take me through the same membership schtick, so I again asked for a supervisor. He refused by stating that he could help me with whatever I needed. I explained the previous conservation with the other person, stated flatly that I had not authorized any payment, had not signed up for any services in any manner, and that if any charges were to be made to my checking account there would be serious consequences. I ended the conversation.

My wife typed "www.consumersense" into our Internet browser and it pulled up a site with another web address named Life Force International. The whole site is a telemarketer, get-rich-quick type of thing. Why this link to the commonsense.com Web address I have no idea. So far I'm having trouble finding a Website for this "Home Protector" company.

The thing that caught my attention was finding a reference to this Rip-Off Report site when I did a search using "insurance sutton park jacksonville florida scam", Sutton Park being the address listed on part of the literature I got. The link on your site was to a complaint about credit card rip-off fraud with a company with another name but the EXACT same address, 13400 Sutton Park South, Jacksonville, Florida.

Obviously there's a nest of con artists and thieves down in Florida running more than one type of consumer scam. My thought is that when they get someone on the phone like me, and it's stated in their recorded greeting that the call may be recorded, they're angling for someone to inadvertently say something like they may have approved a charge or some such thing. I suppose with the right type of "mark" they could get an account number out of them and then slam them for the charge. The alternative, of already having somehow gotten a person's account number, is scary to say the least.

Now the big question is, will I see this mystery charge hit my checking account in the near future. I'll have to wait and see. For what it's worth, I run a port blocker along with a firewall on my home computer for Internet security, for those of you that know what those are. It's not often that I get an attempt for a port probe, but I got a connection attempt alert no less than six times while I had the Life Force International site open. Strange, eh?

John
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
U.S.A.