Complaint Review: Premier Family Services Father's Choice Fatherschoice.org Father's Advocate - Goleta California

When I signed up for their services back in June, it sounded like the answer to our prayers. A way to keep custody of our children for less than half of what most attorneys would charge. The man on the phone who talked me into signing up was great... "We'll have an actual lawyer reviewing your case every step of the way, we've won thousands of cases just like yours, etc..." Unfortunately, I didn't look at ROR until after I'd already signed up. As soon as I found your web-site I immediately called to cancel my account. They talked me out of it saying that there are always a few disgruntled customers for every company, "just like the phone company has." So, I stayed and paid the price.

In the following weeks and now months, I've had some of the absolute worst customer experience in my life! First of all, the case manager who I was originally assigned to (Renee Guillen) was not exactly the most friendly or courteous to work with. She was unable to answer many of my questions and it was extremely hard to get hold of her. I would leave a message and not hear back for days. I finally started emailing her just to get some sort of response. She was supposed to do research for my case, and get back with me, but never did... I always had to call her to get my answers.

Then, I paid $420 of the $845 they asked me for in order to handle all of my paperwork. They had some ditzy woman call and waste over an hour of my time asking the same stupid questions over and over again. When I was emailed my "intake information" sheet to look over for typos it was insane! My 6 year old could have done better... this lady couldn't even spell "Brown St." right, even when I said, "you know, Brown, like the color, b-r-o-w-n." We ended up living on "Rown St." She messed up important information like social security numbers, dates of birth, on and on it went. I immediately called to complain. It finally took 4 phone calls and 2 weeks before some other guy (Frank Desales) called me back and we had to redo the entire thing! Then it took over 4 tries for them just to email the thing in the correct format to be opened on my computer.

I finally got all of the information corrected and Renee said they would start working for me right away, as soon as I paid the remaining $425, they would get the finished documents to me. At this point, I was having some severe doubts as to this company's ability to help me win my court case, so I put off paying for a week to think about it. When I finally called back to talk with Renee on a Monday, some other guy named Tom answered her extension and said she was in training.

I left messages and voicemails all week long trying to reach Renee with no response other than that she was in training and would get back with me as soon as possible. When I called back the following week, I was told by some other guy (Mike maybe?) that he was my new case manager since Renee had transferred to a new department. No notice, no calls, no emails whatsoever and this was the person who was supposed to be my number one contact, available at anytime I had questions or concerns, etc, etc

Well, I hate to admit it, but I totally lost it. I wouldn't let this guy help me at all, I yelled that I wanted his manager and refused to let him get in any other word in edgewise. Finally, someone named Edward Herstock took over the call saying he was the new guy's manager. I told Edward that I no longer had any faith in the company and I wanted my money back. He told me (believe it or not) that His job isn't to make us have faith in him, it's to help the children. To which I replied, How the hell do you expect to help the children when I don't trust you to handle my case properly? Anyway, as you can probably guess, the call deteriorated rapidly. Finally, he said that they could send me a rough draft of the forms I was paying for to see that it was all legitimate and then I could pay the remaining $425 to have the final copy sent to me.

The paperwork showed up 3 days later than it was supposed to, and it was ridiculous. It was literally the same form that I had found on the Internet myself. Only, it wasn't even completely filled in they left some spaces for us to still fill out. At this point, I called back to speak with Edward. After two non returned calls, I spoke with a secretary named Veronica who told me that Edwards manager is Craig. When asked for Craig's last name she replied, I don't know. When asked for her last name, she refused. And guess what??? I haven't heard from anyone in the company since then, and it's been over two weeks.

Now, the children's biological unfit mother is trying to take us to court and it's going to look like the only reason we're fighting the case is as a form of retaliation... that'll look great to a judge ~ NOT! We're out $518, over two month's worth of time, and lost our advantage of being the first to file.

Do yourself and your friends and family a favor. Bite the bullet, find a REAL lawyer who is willing to help you win a case. Borrow money if you must, but hire someone who actually is part of a State Bar, who can help you win. And tell others about this As I was telling a girlfriend about my many problems the other day, she told me that her brother had also wasted money with Father's Choice and has yet to see any kind of a refund.

Amber

Oakland, Iowa

U.S.A.