Complaint Review: Credit Alliance Group Inc. - Shane Gardner or Garner CEO or President - Dallas Texas

Myself, like many others chose this company to help with negotiating some bad interest rates I had on some credit cards.  I paid them for approximately 6 months or more but I knew this was a scam midway through and stopped payment on them several times.  They would even get pretty sneaky at that time and put through different increments.  When you stop a payment with a bank they only stop the payment with a certain increment and the name of the person trying to charge you. 

So.. they put through a different one in a slightly different increment.  I would catch it though and dispute it.  What also alerted me was when dealing with several different people I saw all these different company names.  When I asked they told me that Credit Alliance Group, Inc. was their Parent Company and then they had several affiliate companies set up as well.  I will name them as I go forward.  This is very confusing to the clients and everyone of these affiliates have their hand in your account and money.

After two months I asked someone to get back to me with the status of my account.  I wanted to know how many of my accounts were validated (their teminology).  They couldn't name any and claimed it takes several months.  I called back in another two months and the same thing happened and again and again.  Initially, I asked if they had an established website like other credit counseling services that let you see your current status and where you stand in negotiating and, if settled they show you when you are paying your debt down. 

They didn't have anything established and yet have been in business since 2005.  Hmm...This is the first thing that should have been done when creating their site.  I was also upset because when you call or email they take forever to get back to you and when they do they don't know anything.  Always in negotiations with my creditors.  That basically meant they were doing NOTHING.  Cristina Gomez responded to this question and told me that they were going to update their website in the future to do this and it was in the "works."  

Cristina worked in their affiliate company, "Credit Services Today."  The Credit Alliance Group, Inc. appears to be the Corporate Office and mostly deal with sales (selling their so-called services).  I was sold these services by the CEO himself, Shane Garner.  I still have emails from everyone in that company going back and forth.  His email is one of the first.  Once I committed to join, he passed me on to Shawn Smith also of the Credit Alliance Group, Inc.   

When I stopped payment as mentioned above, Sonya Ramos is the person who contacted me to collect payment and she was with their "Credit Invoice Group."  Mary Schnickel is the person that supposedly negotiates with the Creditors and she is with the "Client Services Group."  Mary is the person that I sent my cancellation email (effective immediately) to on 11/14/2012.  In my email, I asked that they refund all my funds effective immediately and if all were not returned then I wanted a detailed report of what they claim to have earned. 

Mary's reply of 11/15 with a cc: to a Silvia Leyva, claimed that there was currently $238.56 in my escrow account and she also pasted in some transactions that a Lucinda Ramos reported of some validations with two of my creditors in 05/2012.  Funny thing is that several months prior to this those two creditors already "charged off" my accounts and this shows on my credit report.  Not only that but my monthly payment to CAG was this $238.56 and I was paying this amount for quite a while monthly so how could this be the only money in the Escrow Account.  Their explanation was that the other funds were applied to a monthly maintenance fee of theirs. 

Come on!  Do you think I'm stupid?  Why would I pay or agree to a maintenance fee that is the same amount as my monthly payment?  What would even go to my bills!  They also noted that they were going to send me me a disclaimer to sign and have notarized to cancel my account and send back to them.  In laymans terms, this disclaimer mostly asks that we don't do something like this (talk about my account publicly or talk bad about their companie(s) and don't file any action against them. 

So, apparently if I don't sign this then I don't get any of my money back.  I have been sitting on this since 11/15/2012 and have pushed it aside for a while until today when I checked my bank account and they tried to sneak in another payment via ACH Debit for an amount of $79.90 and in the description it has their name and collec behind it.  What could they have collected from me?  I don't owe them anything.  We are at a stand still as I won't sign their B.S. disclaimer to get what belongs to me and it appears they won't cancel my account without me signing it.  I'm going to have to take this further.  

I do want everyone to know what kind of company is out there.  I want someone to view this and investigate them.  He is opening places all over the country it appears.  You could check one states BBB site and he looks good but look at those states where hes been there for awhile.  Wow!  Is all I have to say.  I would also love to know who is awarding them with all these awards as well.  Are they nuts!  Or, are they fake awards to push new clients to believe they are a good company.    Thats insane.  That company doesnt know what end is up or who is doing what.  You cant get a straight answer and basically, in my opinion all those Affiliate companies were established to protect something. 

In one rebuttal to one of these RipOff Reports on YM there was a big explanation that it is the business as a whole and not particularly his company that has a bad name.  I disagree.  There are several legitimate companies out there really helping people.  With this company withholding what they are doing for you in the entire process they are able to hide that they arent doing anything and still collecting your monthly payments.  They are supposed to be setting up a so called escrow account so they can pay your creditors when they come to an agreement with them or validate them. 

Stay away from this company.  Someone needs to seriously look into their business.  This isn't right at all.  I'll be satifised if I deterred a few from giving you business.  People need to know the truth.  I have emails to back up my story and my bank statements.  Do you have proof CAG of doing anything productive for me in all the months you took my money?