My son Corey who recently got married and has a new born is in the process of trying to improve his credit score. His Credit Score is such that he is unable to get approved for an apartment. He is in a serious finacial mess resulting from five years of poor decision's and planned to borrow $6,000 to pay off most of his creditors.
He received an offer from Alpah Financial Foundations to loan him the $6,000 at an 8% interest rate if he could do one of three things. He either had to have collatoral such as a home, have someone cosign for him or purchase insurance on the loan.
We chose to purchase the insurance because there was a guarntee by the company that the insurance money would be returned if he made prompt payments on the loan for at least one year. The cost of the insurance was $970 plus the Western Union fee. The money was to be sent via Western Union to Toronto, Canada with receipt to John Hugh. The main person we talked to was a Karen Mercer who can be reached at 416-837-1510.
I sent the money on Wednesday October 18. Corey received confirmation that the insurance money was received and that the money would be deposited into my checking account (yes I was stupid enough to give the company my routing and account number, however, I have since changed my account number) by Friday October 20. When the money did not arrive as promised, Corey called the company and was told that before the loan amount could be deposited we would have to pay a Canadian tax of $475 which is 6.5% of the loan amount ($6,000).
At this point it became clear that we had been scammed. They told us that if we did not pay the tax than they would cancel the loan. When we asked them to return the insurance money Karen Mercer told us that the company only provided returns on a quarterly basis and that we would not receive the money until February 28.
It was at this point that my Son's wife discoverd usacomplaints.com and started reading about people who had been scammed by this company. There is a ligitimate company that provides loans called Alpha Financial Services. I called our State Attorney General and was told that there was nothing I could do because I voluntarily sent the money via Western Union and because they did not have jurisdiction.
Hopefully, this report will help someone not be scammed by this company. Please make all of your family and friends aware of usacomplaints.com. If we had known about this web site we could have done some research and I would not have lost $1,069 (includs Western Union fee)
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