Tag: Robocalls

Score one for the good guys: “Rachel From Cardholder Services” has left the building

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Have you ever gotten one (or a couple thousand) of those robocalls where “Rachel From Cardholder Services” tells you to press “1” to lower the interest rate on all your credit cards?

If you pressed “1” instead of hanging up the phone in disgust, you were connected to a telemarketer who would attempt to scam you out of a couple thousand dollars in up-front fees. If you pressed “2,” you were supposedly removed from the call list. Of course, Rachel would still call back a few weeks later because pressing “2” did absolutely nothing.

It turns out there were five companies running this scam, and the FTC has now officially brought charges against them. These companies have violated a whole slumgullion of federal regulations. In other words, Rachel From Cardholder Services won’t be calling anymore.

I never liked her anyway.

Anyway, there’s an article over at the Consumerist that goes into more detail.

FTC sues three companies for violations of new robocall rules.

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The FTC is taking three companies to task for violations of the new rules regarding automated “robocalls,” which were passed last September.

All three companies used caller ID spoofing (for example, the caller would appear as “Card Services”) to lure victims into paying fees as high as $1,495 for a credit card interest rate renegotiation. Calls would begin with a prerecorded message. Recipients who pressed “1” would be transferred to a telemarketer who would attempt to sell the service.

Those interest rate negotiations never happened, by the way. Victims simply lost several hundred dollars. One company was also selling worthless auto “warranty extensions” on the side.

The FTC has a real laundry list of complaints against all three entities, including:

  1. Calling consumers whose phone numbers are on the National Do Not Call Registry
  2. Calling consumers who had previously asked not to be called
  3. Failing to transmit their caller ID information, as required
  4. Masking their caller ID information
  5. Failing to promptly identify themselves, the purpose of their call, and/or the nature of the goods or services they were selling
  6. Improperly abandoning calls
  7. Failing to make required disclosures in their robocalls.

It’s a real violation gumbo. The three companies named in the suit are:

  • Economic Relief Technologies, LLC
  • Dynamic Financial Group (U.S.A.) Inc.
  • JPM Accelerated Services (JPM)

Punks. I hope the FTC shuts them down completely, and I hope the people behind these operations aren’t able to hide behind their “LLC” and “Inc.” designations. Doesn’t criminal law apply to these swindlers, too?

Once again, though, this all just goes to show something: namely, that you should never pay anyone a fee for help with your credit card debt, and always check out who you’re dealing with beforehand.

Of course, when they’re blatantly lying about who they are, it might be more difficult. I guess the first question to ask yourself is, “Did I contact them, or did they contact me first?”

If you contacted them, and did your homework, you’re probably OK.

If they contaced you, you’re looking at a scam.

Score one for us: federal robocall ban takes effect September 1st

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They were already supposed to be illegal in Indiana, but telemarketing robocalls are banned on the federal level starting Tuesday.

Basically, a robocall involves an automatic phone dialer and an automated message. You’d get a robotic-sounding voice (hence the name) telling you, for example, that the warranty on your car was about to run out, and to press “1” to extend it. The implication was that the call came from the automaker itself, only it didn’t. Quite a few people have been suckered out of a few thousand dollars each because of these things.

There are some exceptions to this new rule, of course. You should still sign up for the national Do Not Call Registry, as well.