Complaint Review: Wilmington Financial Trust - Universal Loan Services

I have been trying to start a business from home and needed some help to raise a little capital to work with on my endevor. So I began to surf the net to try and find a company that would help me in this opportunity as my credit is not the best. Finally, on 09/12/07, I was contacted by a woman named Nicole Thompson.

Nicole stated that she was the Senior Loan Consultant for Wilmington Financial Trust(aka Universal Loan Services). She stated that she had obtained a copy of my credit report and that she was able to find a private lender that was willing to work with me on a $10K Personal Loan with a 7% interest rate. She explained that her company deals with consumers whose credit is not in very good shape to give the opportunity to square things up.

Then she went on to explain to me that since I was considered to be a "high risk", that I would need to carry what they call Loan Protection Insurance in the amount of $4K, to obtain my loan. I explained to her that I did not have that kind of money and that if I did, I certainly would not be applying for a loan to begin with. She told me that she would talk with her Advisor and the Lender to see what they could do and she would call me back.

Well, she called back the same evening. She stated that if I could come up with $650 that her company would be willing to finance the rest and that my funds would be deposited in 2-3 hours after they received the $650. I talked about this with my husband and we decided to go forward in the process. She told me that she would email the Loan Disclosure to me and that I would need to read it ,and fax 2 pages back to her with a copy of my DL, SSN, CC, personal check, and the Money Gram receipt for the funds I would need to send to her company.

I decided to do some research on her company and could not find anything good or bad, not even on this site. After reading the 9 page Disclosure along with the aggreement for the Loan Protection Insurance (which by the way was supposedly underwritten by a company called Belair Direct who had obtained Compass Underwriting Limited "to act for them"), my husband and I agreed to send in the funds. I called Nicole the next day to get the Money Gram information.

When I spoke with her she told me that I would need to send a Person to Person Money Gram to a man with the name of Michael Smith in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada and that I would need to contact her once I have faxed everything in and provide her with the receive code. I did so.

She again explained to me that she had received all documentation and that my funds would be Directly Deposited into my personal checking account within 2-3 hours and she would call me back. Well 2-3 hours came and went and still no funds had been deposited. I had tried to contact Nicole several times by phone and had even sent her repeated urgent pages through her automated phone system and never received a call back from her.

Finally after about 20 or 30 calls, someone in her office answered the phone and told me that she had left for the day and I would need to call her on Monday. I explained to her that I had been waiting for funds to be deposited into my account and she told me that once the funds had been released that the money would be there. I tried to get her name, but she hung up on me.

Friday night came and went and on Saturday morning, with another look at my account, the funds were still not there. Again, I had tried to contact Nicole, and still no answer. So I decided to do a little research, this time into the underwriting company. I was able to find Belair Direct which is located in Ontario, Canada.

I called on Saturday morning and spoke with a woman by the name of Dina. I explained my situation and she tried to find some information on me in her database. She came up with nothing. She also stated that she did not know that her company had anything to do with Lenders. So I moved on from there to research Compass Underwriting Limited.

Come to find that Compass Underwriting Limited is located in London, England and they do have Loan Protection Insurance called Loanguard. They also have their own form to be used which I never received. Their website stated that no one is in their office on the weekends so I could not try to call them.

After doing this and continuing to call, page, and email Nicole with no repsonse, I called Money Gram and spoke with a girl by the name of Lexi, operator #590. She explained to me that my funds were picked up at 4:10pm on the same day that I sent them. I asked her if she could tell me what location they were picked up at as Money Gram has 37 locations in the Ontario, Canada area.

Her response, "I can not provide you with that information. This is our privacy policy to protect the receiver. You will need to get a cop involved and get a subpoena and once you have that we can release that information to you." I was appalled at this and told her that the Privacy Policy they have is not protecting the right people. I told her that what they are doing is protecting the jerks that screwed me and not the real victim here.

Since then I have had to put a Security Freeze on my Credit Bureau report, notify my bank and credit card company. I have also filed a complaint with the FBI, the FTC, and the Attorney General's office in my state and in Michigan.

Nicole, if you are out there and are reading this message, I hope you get what you and everyone involved in this with you deserve. You and people like you are the reason that we as Americans are so untrusting today. This used to be a good country and people used to be out to help people, not hurt them.

Now my husband and I are out of $650 plus the $15 fee to wire the money. We can not pay our bills or feed our family. We are in jeopardy of losing everything we have which was not much to begin with. So much for trying to acheive the American Dream.

Shannon
Little Rock, Arkansas
U.S.A.