I received a call from a Mark Gardiner claiming that he had a private lender who would approve my 15k loan. I was then told that to secure this loan I would need to pay 4 months in advance but that my next payment wouldn't be due until Dec. The next day I called to tell him to email me the agreement but was told that he could only fax it for "security". I thought this was weird but none the less, he faxed them, I read and signed these official looking forms and faxed them back along with a copy of a voided check as well as my drivers license. I called him later to ask if he had received the papers and I was told "Oh, I haven't even checked yet" this started sounding off bells. Why wouldn't he have checked.
Anyway, I then asked him what the options were for sending him the advance payment and he told me by check, by auto withdrawl or by monygram and that moneygram was most popular and I could find one at Walmart. I asked him to give me the information I would need for the moneygram and I was told "I have to get that from my accounting dept." I then asked if he could just debit the money and all of a sudden his system was being upgraded for the rest of the week and he wouldn't be able to do that. I asked if I could overnight a check and was told "that is not a good idea" that I "should use moneygram".
More bells! I went home and googled centerline and up popped Rip off report with about a dozen reports. Also, when I called moneygram, they had no listing of this company. That was it! I called Mark Gardiner and asked that my paperwork be destroyed, over his voice mail of course becasue you can never get directly to him, but havn't heard anything since then. I was now concerned that he had a copy of one of my checks which contains my account number and routing number. I immediately called my bank to have my checking account number changed. This is a pain, I know, but I would suggest the same to all of you in this situation because even though it's a check copy, those two sets of numbers can be used to auto debit an account. Good luck to everyone and I hope my situation helps someone else.
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