Complaint Review: AT&T Universal Card - Nationwide

COMPUTERS, etc., INCORPORATED

2001 W. Southlake Blvd., Suite 131 - Southlake, TX 76092 - (817) 410-2266

Franchise div. of Computers etc Inc.

Wednesday, April 30, 2003

CASE NUMBER: 418820

Comptroller of Currency

Customer Assistance Group

1301 Mc Kinney St

Houston, TX 77010

RE: Citibank AKA: AT&T Universal Card

To understand the situation let me explain in part again, what I told you over the phone. I, Mike Griese, am the president of a franchise of retail computers stores. Part of my job duties are to make decisions as to what merchandise we want to sell through our stores. As a result of that, anytime a Distributor of computer products contacts us, I have to determine if their products, pricing and the like are suitable for sale through our stores.

A company, Silicon Mobile Technology, that claims to sell laptops wholesale to stores like ours, called me to try to get me fill out a standard industry application and set up with them to carry and sell their laptops through our stores. To explain the nature of their crime being perpetrated, Silicon Mobile Technologys scam tactics are simply deceptive and unfair trade practices amongst other crimes. What they do is call you and attempt to make it look like they want you to become a Wholesale/Reseller vender of their laptops by sending you an industry standard credit application so that if you are approved, you can then purchase wholesale from them, in order to resell their laptops to the public at retail. As part of the sales scam, they bait you or entice you to fill out their industry standard credit application by offering you a free of charge DEMO laptop for 45 days, to display in your retail storefront. So, while you think that all you are doing, is getting set up as a potential distributor, in fact their real aim is to fraudulently sell you a so called DEMO laptop. The offer for 45 days is verbal over the phone so you cant prove what they said. However, I did ask them to put this in writing and they did send me an Email to that effect. After they send you the DEMO laptop, behind your back and without your knowledge, they then write up an invoice that looks like a sale and gives you only 30 days to pay and states that all sales are final. They then try to make it appear to your credit card company that you intended to buy the DEMO and not merely accept the DEMO unit from them for a trial period of 45 days as part of their sales pitch and that they say you can return without being charged. This is even on their website (www.superlaptop.com) that they will send you a DEMO if your application is approved, but nothing about 30 or 45 days trial period. Now, once you have the laptop, they run a charge through on the credit card number you put down on their credit application and charge you for the laptop without your authorization. Of course they time it so that by the time you send the laptop back per the verbal agreement, you get your credit card statement a week later, only then to find out that they charged you for the supposedly returnable DEMO unit. Now they have both your money and the laptop. I think you will agree this is a particularly creative scam. Makes you wonder how many other retail venders have they scammed this way? Get a sales department working the phones to call all of the computer retail stores in America with the same offer and even if they only get away with it 50% of the time, that adds up to a lot of fraudulent laptop sales and a lot of money. I am faxing all of the paper work involved here. In any event, when I received my credit card statement, Im shock and upset when I find out that Silicon Mobile has charged me for the so-called DEMO laptop I sent back.

So, of course, I called Silicon Mobile and spoke with the salesman that originally called me, Mr. David Jan, and demand they credit me my money back. He agrees to do so and then sends me an Email that states that they will credit me my money back for the laptop I have returned and includes an Email attachment of their industry standard RMA form for me to fill out and send back to him. RMA stands for RETURN MERCHADISE AUTHORIZATION. Ultimately, they never give me my credit back. From that time forward, November 4, 2002, they have thwarted all my efforts resolve this when ever I call them, by always asking who I am first, then once they know who I am, they say no one is there to take my calls. They claim the company manager and David Jan are always gone somewhere and they dont know when they will be back. They claim to take my messages and have someone call me back, but of course no one ever does.

So, of course, I then call my credit card company, AT&T Universal Card and tell them the date I returned the laptop, sent them proof of UPS delivery, and the reason for the return was that, simply stated It was a store DEMO not for purchase. Please keep in mind that this started in October of 2002 and there have been numerous attempts on my part via phone calls and letters to AT&T to get my money back. At the time, when this first began, I did not know what kind of scam they were running. Included in this fax is all of the paper work that proves that AT&T Universal Card is not crediting my credit card back for this unauthorized and fraudulent charge. They have repeatedly given me only ambiguous excuses as to why they will not credit back my credit card and they are aiding and abetting the criminal merchant by taking their side. There is some, as yet unknown, mysterious reason why AT&T is taking the side of this criminal merchant, rather than their customer. Which by the way reminds me, that I called 2 other disputes department managers from two of my other credit cards to try to find out how these situations are normally handled. Both department managers were astounded by what AT&T Universal Card is doing. They couldnt believe how AT&T is handling this. They told me that they always go out of their way to attempt to try to protect their customers from scams like this and said there is something unusual about the way AT&T is handling this. In any event, after I sent AT&T the evidence I had of the scam, the documentation thats proves this was not an attempt by me to purchase a laptop from Silicon Mobile, and a copy of the Email David Jan sent me stating they would give me my money back, someone at AT&T in an attempt to help Silicon Mobile, calls and alerts Silicon Mobile that, they received all this proof from me and instructs Silicon Mobile that they need to come up with some sort of fake receipt with my signature on it, stating that all sales are final, or they will be forced to give me my money back. Silicon Mobile and AT&T did not bank on me saving the Emails, the Credit Application, the RMA Form and all of the other evidence I happened to save. So, Silicon Mobile follows the suggestions from AT&T and creates some sort of bogus receipt dated 9/6/02, that says all sales are final and they forge my signature on it and then fax it to AT&T. The date on this bogus receipt and the time of day is very important because it is the exact same date Silicon Mobile faxed me their New Client Application, the same date I filled it out and faxed it back to them with my credit card number on it, the same date they supposedly check out my companys vender information and bank information in order to approve my application, the same date they claim they approved my application, the same date they sent me an Email to the effect that they would then send me a DEMO laptop without charging me for it and the same date they shipped out the so-called DEMO laptop. It was impossible for them to check my companys history in order to approve my application in that short a period of time. Silicon Mobile is located in California and faxed me the application at 10:08am. I am located in Texas, Central Standard Time, which made it 12:08pm here. It was hours later, about 5:30 6:00pm when I faxed back the application to them. My bank was closed as well as the Trade references. In fact they never did check my companys bank and trade references information.

All they needed for their scam to work was my credit card information, which was on the application I filled out and faxed back to them. To confirm my suspicions and verify this, I called the trade references I listed on my application and they if fact told me that Silicon Mobile never called them to inquire about my company.

I can tell you honestly, that I never signed any kind of receipt at any time for anything. The only thing I ever signed was the New Client Application, on 9/6/2002, that Silicon Mobile faxed me to get set up as a distributor of their laptops. I wrote and told this to AT&T. That doesnt matter anyway, as AT&T should have sent me an affidavit so to sign stating that this was an unauthorized, fraudulent charge. If this was an order I placed over the Internet, the other disputes department managers told me it might be a different story. This is just another scam, albeit a creative scam. I would like to know why, mysteriously, AT&T Universal Card is taking the side of a criminal offense perpetrated by Silicon Mobil and helping to protect them, but that doesnt matter either, a fair solution to matter is simply for AT&T to credit my account back for the unauthorized and fraudulent charge.

Thank you for reviewing my case and your time.

Respectfully

Mike Griese

President

Computers etc Inc, Franchise Div.

Mike

Sothlake, Texas
U.S.A.