- Report: #327821
Complaint Review: Heartland Inc - Des Moines Iowa
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Heartland Inc
Des Moines, Iowa, U.S.A.
Phone:
515-251-5316
Web:
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Heartland, Inc Violated the Government Do Not Call Registry to try and sell me magazines Des Moines Iowa
First off, I have been registered with the National Do Not Call registry since January of 2003.(I recently checked to verify that I am still on the list, and I am).
This Company called me Jan. 17, 2008. and started out bu asking how I like the magazines I was receiving. Since I was receiving magazines from another company, I assumed they were somehow affiliated with that company and I never asked.
They made a lot of small talk(probably designed to get me to give some 'yes' answers that they could use later) and verified some information like age, credit card number address, etc. they never told me that the purpose of the call was a sales call(and I believe, if my research is correct, that this is required of telemarketers) and they never asked me if I would agree to pay $49.90/ month for 20 months to add 5 more years onto the subscriptions.
By February, they were billing my credit card for the $49.90, I missed the first one but I caught it on the March bill and reported it to the credit card company as an unauthorized charge, and they took it off.
Heartland then started calling me almost daily and sent me a letter that they would send an invoice and I should mail them a check.
On these phone calls I told them that I had never authorized them to bill me so they played a tape purported to be the recording of the sales call. I can't prove it without having the tape analyzed, but that conversation did not take place in that way and the charges had never been mentioned to me(they were on the tape, however and my response was uh-huh, which I believe was something i answered to a different question and I believe in order for the verbal, recorded contract to be valid, the purchaser has to give a definite and clear affirmative response)
I decided that it would be too costly and time consuming to try to prove the tape was a fake, so I went after the Do Not Call violation instead. The first person I mentioned it too said it was my obligation to notify them that I was on the do not call list, which proved he either didn't know the law or didn't care. The second person I mentioned it too said I wasn't on their list(if they bought the list like they are required to do, I would have been on it).
When I researched the Do Not Call law, I find that they are required to purchase the lists of every area code that they make calls in and if they don't, they could be fined up to $11,000/ per phone call. But, the FTC does not inforce this, they only keep a data base of the complaints, it is up to an attorney general or a district attorney to bring charges I guess.
I did get them to drop the contract by filing complaints with the FTC, the BBB, the South Dakota Attorney General's office and Senator Tim Johnson's office, and I was willing to keep going if necessary.
Even tho, I am no longer on the hook for the charges, I believe scammers should be stopped and I hope someone takes hold of this and runs with it.
Jim
Hermosa, South Dakota
U.S.A.
This Company called me Jan. 17, 2008. and started out bu asking how I like the magazines I was receiving. Since I was receiving magazines from another company, I assumed they were somehow affiliated with that company and I never asked.
They made a lot of small talk(probably designed to get me to give some 'yes' answers that they could use later) and verified some information like age, credit card number address, etc. they never told me that the purpose of the call was a sales call(and I believe, if my research is correct, that this is required of telemarketers) and they never asked me if I would agree to pay $49.90/ month for 20 months to add 5 more years onto the subscriptions.
By February, they were billing my credit card for the $49.90, I missed the first one but I caught it on the March bill and reported it to the credit card company as an unauthorized charge, and they took it off.
Heartland then started calling me almost daily and sent me a letter that they would send an invoice and I should mail them a check.
On these phone calls I told them that I had never authorized them to bill me so they played a tape purported to be the recording of the sales call. I can't prove it without having the tape analyzed, but that conversation did not take place in that way and the charges had never been mentioned to me(they were on the tape, however and my response was uh-huh, which I believe was something i answered to a different question and I believe in order for the verbal, recorded contract to be valid, the purchaser has to give a definite and clear affirmative response)
I decided that it would be too costly and time consuming to try to prove the tape was a fake, so I went after the Do Not Call violation instead. The first person I mentioned it too said it was my obligation to notify them that I was on the do not call list, which proved he either didn't know the law or didn't care. The second person I mentioned it too said I wasn't on their list(if they bought the list like they are required to do, I would have been on it).
When I researched the Do Not Call law, I find that they are required to purchase the lists of every area code that they make calls in and if they don't, they could be fined up to $11,000/ per phone call. But, the FTC does not inforce this, they only keep a data base of the complaints, it is up to an attorney general or a district attorney to bring charges I guess.
I did get them to drop the contract by filing complaints with the FTC, the BBB, the South Dakota Attorney General's office and Senator Tim Johnson's office, and I was willing to keep going if necessary.
Even tho, I am no longer on the hook for the charges, I believe scammers should be stopped and I hope someone takes hold of this and runs with it.
Jim
Hermosa, South Dakota
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Random Dude
Dsm,Iowa,
U.S.A.
look
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, March 03, 2009
Hey man if it makes ya feel any better and i know it wont they do buy all the lists and what not. The owner tries to do everything legit so as to draw attention away from where all the money goes. She buys herself a new car monthly sends all her family on vacations to jamaica (who all do work there btw) but yeah she runs the company legitamtely. i know this because my fiance has worked there for over a year now i worked there for 8 hours and called it quits. but i do appreciate you taking the time to file those reports with the BBB, AG and the senator and whom ever else they do need to be shut down in my opionion and it doesnt truly matter my fiance is about to get a new job anyway. Oh and another little tid bit for anyone who reads this who hasnt been called by a sales person yet its not their first night on the job one lady has worked there for 18 plus years and yeah its all a sales thing
