My Fiance and I had an experience similar to the horror stories described over and over again on this wonderful website. Firstly, I would like to say how nice it is to know that we are not alone in this fight, and that we are not just suckers that got roped into something, but the company is really misleading and dishonest.
In October of 2004 my fiance enrolled in the program after buying a house and realizing that the debt that followed was too much. His credit was near perfect at that point. For an entire year he was told not to worry about the creditors that were calling, they were only trying to scare us to get more money. They called his family, even though they were not listed on any of his credit card contact information. FCCC did not respond to any emails or phone calls, and when reps were spoken to they were rude and repeated the line about the banks trying to scare us.
I moved in one year later and shortly there after a lein was placed on our home, and he was served legal documents for an outstanding balance owed on a personal loan that was supposedly being paid by FCCC. That was the last straw. Sadly, neither he nor I had been examining the statements being that we were/are young and naive. When I did look I realized that after a year of sending $400.00 a month ($4800.00) he owed $1000.00 MORE than when he started, and the balances for each card had increased ten fold.
When FCCC was contacted by phone they said everything had to be by email or fax. We emailed them immediately, went to the bank and placed a stop payment on all transactions through them, and dealt with the banks ourselves. Thankfully my parents were able to help us out as well. However, despite multiple attempts to have us removed from the program, we still get statements every month. For four months there have been zero balances on all the cards and yet they still report that thousands are owed.
We too got suckered into the set up fees, adn $25 a month fees. They rarely paid out money to the banks, when they did it was late. There were never any contracts set into place like they claimed in the statements they sent. There was never any negotiation, the interest rates were never reduced, most of the banks were never even contacted. His credit (soon to be mine when we marry) dropped 200 points, and is now listed as poor.
Something has to be done to stop these people. I have contacted the Connecticut Attorney Generals office, I am going to email the BBB,, but from reading these reports that doesnt seem to do much. I'm also going to contact a private attorney to see if we have a chance at getting some justice. I am definately interested in any class action law suit, please just let me know. I have all the paperwork to back up everything as well.
The whole thing makes me so angry. I myself have 3 jobs, my fiance has 4. We work countless hours a week giving back to the community and trying to help people, and volunteer doing the same. We're good people (granted I'm biast haha) with college degrees. We, like everyone else didnt deserve this. Try to remember that what goes around comes around. Mr. Armstrong, I hope you rot in hell.
Jennifer
Watertown, Connecticut
U.S.A.