Complaint Review: Nova Financial

October 1-5, 2012

I received a call from a voice that identified himself as William Joe Davis who told me that there was a $1,000,000 life insurance policy on my husband that would expire in a few days.  I was the beneficiary.  The premium of $4,980.37 was due in 3 days.   To efficiently process the payment so that the policy would not lapse, Davis said I should send the money right away to a Romanian account.  Branch Rorzbr.  

Account number ************0605.  Agent:   Raluca Adina Radulescu.   I was suppose send the payment by international transfer using the code:  IBAN  Ro03RZbr.    I said I needed proof that the policy existed.   I did not know of it and my husband could not remember ever having bought it.   But I told Davis that I would look for it in our files.   I was unable to find any such policy anywhere.

The next morning I received a call from a voice that identified himself as Gregory Meeks who said I did not have to wire the money to Romaniathat I could get a bank draft from my bank then go to Wells Fargo and deposit it to their Wells Fargo (San Francisco) Account Number *******3735.   I was to use the payment transaction number 996334059 specifying it was a pre-authorization only.   I would be able

to release the funds later.  All this had to be completed by 2:00 PM in order to save the policy from cancelling out.   He gave me the insurance policy number **********59IP issued by Nova Financial.  

I informed him that I was unable to locate the policy and that I would need a copy of it before I proceeded with any payment.

I received a call from a voice that identified himself as David Bucher, a retired insurance agent, who told me that he was the training insurance agent at the company years ago where my husband used to work.  He named the company.that one of the trainee agents sold the original policy to my husband.   (More babble in an attempt to convince me.)  I wanted to send him some info about my business.  He agreed.  He gave me the address of 5401 Temple Street NW, Atlanta, GA 30305, which according to USPS.com does not exist.

Over the course of several additional phone calls, I also told Meeks that I had never received a bill for the payment that was supposedly due.    Curious note:   He said this policy had premium payments every 5 year.   Meeks then said that they dont send out invoices.that the holder of the insurance policy was responsible for going into a web site to ask for it.  He never ever gave me a web site to access.   He also mentioned the need of a password.  I repeated that I never received a paper bill, I did not have copy of the policy, and I did know about any web site.  I said I would not make any payment until I had a copy of the policy.  I asked him to send me a copy of the policy.   He agreed to overnight it to me.

Each call continued to pressure me to get the payment sent.   Then I was told that since my husband had been so good at getting all the previous payments in on time, that even if I was a little late, they could probably get any late fees waived.   Hmmm.   I thought the policy cancelled if I didnt pay it by the due date?!?!?   Now Im told about a grace period of several more days duration and they could get the late fee waived.  

The next day I received a copy of the policy delivered by Colt Messenger Service, 770 S. Brea Blvd. Brea, CA 92821 phone number 714-257-0134.   When I opened the package, I received something that looked like a computer generated 9-page document copied from an email instead the multi-page preprinted documents expected.   Nova Financial Basic Life Insurance appeared in the document along with the policy number, my husbands plan sponsor (where he once worked) and my husbands name.  The policy date was the end of the previous month. 

After payment, the policy would extend 5 years forward.  It also showed me (his wife) as beneficiary to the value of $1,250,000.  There was no other date, no company address, no phone numbers, and no address for my husband.  The insurance agent listed was Gregory Meeks, phone number 615-241-0186.  This was a policy that they said originated in 1982.  And the clincher is that the policy could not ever be renewed or revived unless the payment was kept current.

More investigative work, I called the Colt Messenger Service to ask the originator of the delivery.  The person who I talked to refused to give this information.  He did say that he did not take that order and had no way to look it up; however, he did seem know that the order came through email.

I had my local insurance agent review what I received.  He recognized immediately as a scam.probably geared toward seniors.