For several years, American consumers have been receiving illigal and unwanted robocalls with a recorded message from “Rachel”, "Heather", most recently "Ann" or vaguely named “Cardholder Services.”
Finally today, the Federal Trade Commission announced it had pulled the plug on five companies behind these scammy robocalls: federal courts granted the agency’s request to temporarily halt five robocall operations that allegedly deceived consumers into paying hundreds or thousands of dollars by making phony claims that they could reduce credit card interest rates in return for an upfront fee.
The robocalls purport to have an “important message” regarding an opportunity to reduce high credit card interest rates, and consumers are urged to “press 1” to connect with a live representative, or “press 2” to discontinue getting such calls. Consumers who press 1 are connected to live telemarketers, who then pitch deceptive offers to have the credit card interest rates substantially reduced, sometimes to as low as 6.9 or even zero percent.
In some cases, according to the FTC, the telemarketers claim to be calling from the consumer’s credit card company. In other cases, they use “Cardholder Services” to suggest a relationship with a bank or credit card company. If the consumer expresses an interest in the rate reduction offer, the telemarketer sometimes conducts a purported “audit” to determine whether the consumer qualifies.
Consumers provide their financial and personal information, and are then put on hold while the “audit” is completed. According to the FTC, the “audit” typically is used only to determine whether consumers have enough credit available on their credit cards to pay the company’s fee.
After consumers have been “approved” for the program the telemarketer informs them that there is an up-front fee, typically ranging from several hundred dollars to nearly $3,000. To convince them to pay the fee, telemarketers often say that it will be more than offset by the money the consumer will save through the program. In some cases, the FTC alleges that consumers’ credit cards were charged even if they did not agree to pay for the service. In other cases, the defendants allegedly do not disclose a fee at all, or claim there will be no fee.
After consumers pay the up-front fee they typically find that the companies do little or nothing to lower their credit card interest rates. The only thing that some companies do, according to the FTC, is to initiate three-way calls with consumers’ credit card issuers and orally request a rate reduction, a request that consumers could make on their own and that invariably is denied.
The five complaints announced today were filed against the following companies and their principals:
4) The Green Savers, and
(click on the links above to read the phone call reports made by the community about the defendants.)
Post a comment