My wife, Aliene, was called on 11-15-04 by a woman who identified herself as Jennifer, telemarketing for National Credit Financial Alternatives, P.O. Box 40130, St. Petersburg, FL 33743, tel. (727) 289-0288. Jennifer gave Aliene her phone number (727) 501-9888, ext. 351.
Jennifer offered a credit card with a beginning limit of $2500. Following 6 months of timely payments, limit would be increased to $7000.interest on purchases would be 6.9% fixed with no processing fee, although a $300 upfront deposit was required.
Aliene gave Jennifer her personal information and told her the $300 charge could be made on 11-29-04 unless they were called and advised otherwise. Jennifer assigned Aliene an i.D. # of 24436007. Aliene was then connected with somebody who was announced with a message that verification could be recorded.
Approximately 10 minutes later, Aliene received another call from a woman who said she was verifying and started asking her for the information she had already given so Aliene declined to provide it again. The woman gave her a new i.D. # 1353976 and a phone number to contact their "Oregon office, " 1-866-333-1593 and mentioned that it was to be a "First National" card and the down payment would be $299.
On approximately 11-24-04, Aliene called NCFA at (727) 289-0288 and spoke with Enrique who was very professional and agreed to change the withdrawal date to 1-29-05. However, our checking account was drafted on 11/29/04 for $299, payable to AIG, Ltd., telephone 1-866-581-5774. The ACH draft had the date clearly altered from 1/29 to 11/29 using a different font for the 2 "1's" of 11.
On 12-3-04, Aliene called NCFA again and confirmed that they had changed the payment date to 1-29-05 and had not drafted our account. On 12-7-04, she called NCFA again, speaking to Ronald who checked and re-confirmed that 1-29-05 was the scheduled date for the withdrawal. She also called AIG aka Amerinet, and spoke to Tanya who reported that they do ACH drafting for over 500 companies and the $299 draft was for Fundamental Consumer Strategies, 1-866-333-1593; this was the first time this name had emerged during our inquiries.
It seems obvious that somebody at NCFA fed Aliene's information to Fundamental Consumer Strategies prompting the second "verification" call 11-15-04 and the ACH draft on 11-29-04. NCFA declined any knowledge of this.
Aside from this obvious security breach, NCFA has been professional and followed through on what they said they would do.
Sincerely
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