Complaint Review: Sociallity

I had a minor issue with a gas pump declining what I knew was an active Debit card. I worked with the Bank of America (eventually) to get thing easily resolved (their pumps were at fault) by the merchant.  A caller representing herself as being from the BOA fraud division called at 8:34AM, 5/9/2017 and said she noticed repeated "suspicious" activity (I went to three pumps). She knew I had had trouble with the pumps and had gone to an inside ATM machine at the convenience store that owned the pumps.

At the ATM, my card was accepted and I asked for the amount in my account. It was provided. I then took $20 in cash.  The "fraud" lady, who was familiar with all the details from the day before, then asked me about another repeated charge that seemed suspicious to her. It was $5.00 automatically debited from my account starting in late December to this May of 2017, skipping February. The name given was Sociallity (wiith two ll's). I had never heard of the company, much less contacted them for any kind of product.

She said she blocked them from pulling out any more money. We talked about some other things and she hung up. Later, in checking my caller ID, there was a May 9th call to my phone at 8:34AM from the number (315) 724-4022 with a Bank of America identifier. I called the number and a recorded female voice on the other end said "Thank you for calling. This is an operator with an overseas collect call." I hung up. I then called the customer service number on the back of my debit card, explained the situation and he said the 5.00 wasn't blocked. I asked him to do so.

I decided to go to my local bank and check the account. I explained everything all over again and the local lady said nothing was blocked. She kindly consented to do so. That afternoon, I called the 800 customer service number again and a lady checked the account again. It was blocked. I told her about the 315 number and she said it was not connected to the BOA or the fraud division and when the fraud people call, they don't leave anything on caller ID. I had her call 315 and she got the same recorded long-distance message.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that 315 (an upstate NY number) was  used a few years ago but was taken out of service at that time.  So one of the bad guys got ahold of the number (still with the Bank of America caller ID name) and is using it for God knows what. It was probably the number used for my 8:34 call. It's disturbing that the caller knew all the details of my prior transactions.

After blocking any further withdrawals, I looked Sociallity up on the Internet and found their claim to put you in touch with Internet Physicians from an entirely legitimate physician assitance site for $5.00. There was no mention of a $49 fee for this service. I do not find the fee out of line for such a consulting service, but I would suspect many customers were surprised that it existed and probably thought, naively, that their 5 bucks covered everything.

I went back to an Sociallity access website that purported to allow you to cancel your "order."  When I called the number, I was told a representative would call back in a few minutes. I received a call from their main number at 9:41, well past "a few minutes." By that time I was away from my home. The next day, I decided to do a little investigating. I asked for billing. A woman answered at roughly 9:30-9:45AM, 5/10/2017. I demanded to know where they got my name. This was when I was told of the process of lifting my information from a prior order on the Internet. I was asked the name of that site and she claimed not to know. But it soon became clear that, by their own admission, that Sociallity acquires personal and bank information from other websites (I don't know if those sites are in on the scam) and uses that information to arbitrarily take money from your bank account without your permission. I suspect the amount is kept low so you'll basically skip over it and not think anything about it.

There may be something buried in the tiniest of small print in either Sociallity or their possible accessories that "allows" for that action, but I strongly doubt it. If so, Congress has to make an immediate move.