I'm at work--yeah I post from my office in between other things. I sit in a open area and I was listening this morning to my Receptionist take a call and her voice getting more firm and more upset. Words like "why do you need my account number, no I'm not giving you my tracking routing number, where did you find this, and how are you?"
They claimed to be a Consumer research company who found her personal checking account information on a public verification system and in order to get it removed they needed to verify all this. She put them on hold and asked my advice. I told her to tell them they needed to send her this information and request to her in writing. They balked and sent her to a supervisor (the guy's comment was "I don't have any reason to lie to you.") I'm over here at my desk screaming "BOGUS BOGUS BOGUS!" she hung up as they were transferring her to a 'supervisor'. She got their 800 number. I googled it and got this:
Posted by: billy taylor at December 27, 2004 09:22 AM
I recieved a response from First Link Benefits on Dec 20, 2004; they said it was in response to my inquiry about getting a credit card, so I assumed i was talking to someone ligit. they told me the card would be unsecured with a $2500 limit and becaue they were doing a promotion i would get a new Gateway Computer system, I still have the email i printed out. The CS agent i spoke to went over the whole thing and i said i cant do that now at Christmas so he said how about a month from now, Jan 20th? so I thought okay, i went for it like an idiot! so about 2 weeks ago i wanted to cancel the deal and called the CS# 866-284-5041 and spoke to an agent. the lady i talked to said that she was getting calls from people like myself in reference to FLB and that her company had no agreement with them and she had no number to give me and could not help me at all! the bank said the only way to stop it was to close the account and start a new one,I can't i have bills out. So with my mom's help we found their number it's 800-315-0356. you have to wait a long time to get thru but when i did the FLB CS agent pulled up my account by my phone # and i told him to cancel the deal, he said "i can't do that it's due tomorrow 1/19, but your bank can put a stop payment on it!" I told him, "i called the CS# you give out they have nothing to do with your company and they've been getting complaints." I added "i found out on line that there are lots of complaints to the BBB and other negitative reports on the iternet about this company, and I called Master Card International, they put me thru to their CC Hot line to report them. I did." I told him "if your company tries to take any money out of my account i will have you prosecuted. my bank has been informormend and they will go after you!" to that he said, "I'll make a note of it, good bye"
Don't let these people get away with this! We all have to go after them, no matter the inconvience!!!!!!!!
URL here:
http://www.scamsafe.com/scamsafe/2004/12/fraud_alert_fir.htmlSo...this number is using a variety of ways to get a hold of account information on people.
So the phone rings again and I pick it up. They assume I am her. I say no. They demand to speak to her and I said:
"Look. You have wasted enough of my employee's time on my time-clock. You won't send her information in writing because you don't have it. don't waste my time or her time with your scam. No, you can't speak to her." and I hung up.
They count on you being shaken and up set and fearful of your credit information privacy and identity theft.
DO NOT FALL FOR THIS SHIT