Complaint Review: Advanced Web Media - Pheonix Arizona

Advanced Web Media contacted my husband. They talked for a long time over the phone. They made promises of easy money. Always a tell-tell sign of a scam. Within an hour this company had convinced my husband to give him our credit card number along with our personal information such as our address and telephone numbers.

That same night my husband informed me of his decision and that they had convinced him to pay $399 to set up his blog website. With an additional $1300 paying for "a custom site with Google AdSense, and Amazon Affiliate Store, Blog Site Listed on Front Page of Google within 30 days and 30,000 visitors." The premise behind this scam is they set you up with a blog, that is maintained on its own. Every time someone visits your site and buys a product using your blog you get a percentage of the proceeds which is then sent by check through mail.

After it was explained to me I felt a gut instinct telling me this was a bad idea. Who gets money for nothing?? I never have!

I told him he needed to call and cancel. The company had informed us we had three days to cancel. I made him call back the next day. Twelve hours later, he called and talked to someone in person. They proceeded to confirm that the transaction would be cancelled and no charge would be made to our account.

The next day following, the two payments were both taken from our Discover credit card account. Both of us proceeded to call the company. I reached one female individual named Trisha. I voiced my concern and stated that the charges needed to be taken from our account and we needed a document sent to us stating we had indeed cancelled. She quickly blew me off and stated she would "check into it and call me back in a few days." As you can guess, I never received that call.

My husband talked to the person he had originally cancelled with and this individual stated that he wasn't sure why we were charged, but would check and call us back. No call from that man either.
For the next two weeks we proceeded to call three different numbers we had for the company. One number was completely disconnected. One number stated the voice mailbox was full. One number (602) 388-4254 was the only working number that went to an answering machine.

I have left five different messaged on this line. Each getting more irritated. Leaving my number each time to be contacted. No attempt at contact has been made to this point.

Realizing that we were not going to be refunded, while making these calls, we turned to Discover credit card for help. We filed for a refund against this fraudulent company. Discover credited us the money, pending investigation, so we wouldn't pay for interest. Over the course of a month Discover repeatedly attempted to call this number and contact this company. They received nothing. So Discover credited our account with a letter stating at any time the company could contact with proof which would reverse the credit.

As you can guess, less than a week later of being credited. Advanced Web Media sent copies of an invoice, a terms and agreement page (with a signature line that we never signed), and a picture of the site originally set up. We visited the site after we received this letter and it no longer exists. Is this site still floating around? I don't know. No username or password was given to us to manage the site.

I contacted the credit card company after receiving a letter from them with all of this information. They stated that unfortunately "our hands are tied" because we never received proof from the company that we actually called to cancel. Of course not, why would the Advanced Web Media send us that?

So now, at this point in time, we are stuck paying the $1,699 back to this company, while receiving nothing in return, like the company originally claimed. Also, I am having to contact the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Attorney General to report what has happened. The FTC stated that we are obligated to pay the money, because the information was given willingly.

I understand that, and we will pay it. But I will be contacting some sort of legal aid to make sure this company can't come back in the future and claim we owe them x amount of dollars because we didn't hold up our contractual end of the agreement (which we never viewed or signed).

It's frustrating. You think that companies like discover have your "back", but find out that there are loopholes the company works around. Since then, we have changed our account number, so at least they can not take money from us again.

I looked up this company on the internet and they have a website, http://advancedwebmediagroup.com/. The website appears to just be there as a decoy. The phone number has never been set up, and the address belongs to a Mexican resturaunt named Mariscos Ensenada. They have posts running along the side of the website with dates of April 22, 2048. Clearly, this is a scam.

It makes you feel scared and vulnerable knowing that a group of people can work together at being so benevolent and uncaring, knowingly suckering you into something, and not care how it effects that individual.

When I went to investigate on the internet about anyone else having problems I found nothing. That scared me even more. I hope this report helps someone along the way.

Don't give your personal information to Advanced Web Media!!