I received a phone call from Greg Sullivan 866-827-8717 (ext 482) from First Atlantic Investments telling me I was approved for a $12,000 personal loan. He explained that the company would loan me the full $12,000 but it had to b e secured with 6 months collateral payments which totaled $1401.06 and that my first payment would start on 1 Feb because that collateral would be applied to the principal amount of the loan.
I asked Greg many questions, he was able to answer every one of them, professionally and they all made sense, it didn't sound like a scam. After a few days of discussion about this my husband and I decided to do it. I asked Greg how we could get the money to them, he told me if I Western Union'd it I could have the funds in my account within 24 hours.
I went to the Western Union and sent the money as instructed to an address in Canada, I asked him why Canada and he said that was where the lender was. He told me the money was to go to a Cindy Baker (that should have been my clue #1) I asked him why an individual and not the company, he said she was in charge of accounts receivable and was the one who processed the payments for the company. The money went out 1 June.
On 2 June I called to see if they had received the money and when I could expect my funds to be transferred, I had given them my bank account info already. About an hour later a guy named Matthew called me back and said he was the Customer Servece Manager and that he had my file because there was a problem with the account. He stated that I would need to send $1400.00 more in to be able to secure the loan, that after further review the lender and the insurance company said it was not ebough collateral. He ensured that if I sent the additional $1400.00 I would have the full $12,000 within 3 hours. He also said I could have a refund of my initial collateral payment of $1400.00.
After speaking with my husband and realizing this was not legit, most likely a scam, I asked for my money to be refunded, Matthew then told me it would be in my account on 23 June. I asked him why it took so long and the answer was becasue it has to wait for there billing cycle and that the lender had my loan on hold so until the funds were released at the billing cycle I could not have my money back. I insisted this was not right and that they should be able to refund my money right away.
After going back and forth realizing that wasn't going to happen I told Matthew I was going to call the Better Buisness buraeu, the FBI consumer fraud deopartment, the state attorney general consumer fraud department and the media, he hung up on me.
I have contacted all the above agencies and filed reports, I also contacted Western Union and reported with them, they took the informatin and reported it to their fraud security department. Western Union gave me a number to the fraud agency in Canada called Phone Busters, their toll free number is.
They want to stop the fraud from coming into their country.
Hopefully I will get my money back on 23 June, I'm not counting on it but with any luck I will. I don't want anyone else to fall into this scam! I will keep you posted on whether I get my money back.
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