Others have written and accurately described the scam that lures people into this company's trap. I fell into it last August, and am reporting my experience of confronting them and receiving a "refund" (they admitted that the service they promised was never delivered) which never materialized...
The Beginning: Initially this company left me a message implying that they were calling from my credit card department. After I called them back, and by the time I realized who they were, I was already persuaded that they would successfully lower my credit card interest rate to 4.9%, and that the cost of the service "would pay for itself" within four months. Right. (My numbers are registered with the National DoNotCall Registry, by the way, so it did not occur to me that the message they left was fraudulent.)
The charge on my card was from a company called "Clear Breeze" — had they used this name I would have caught it right away because it comes up in all kinds of scam-report websites, but CFS does not and I missed my window to figure that out in time.
The paperwork never arrived. The "financial advisors" never showed up for their confirmed appointment times. When I called them (because they didn't call me when they said they would), they would tell me that it says in my file that someone called but there was no answer (not true, I was at the phone when they told me they'd call). Finally, somebody listened to my list of issues and told me I would receive a credit on my account. I called each week for the next four weeks to check on it, and was told each time it was "being processed." Finally at the end of November, they called to tell me the refund had been processed, and they gave me the confirmation number. Of course, the refund didn't appear on my next card statement because the transaction was "issued" just before the Dec. 1 statement was sent out. I forgot to check in January and February, but when the balance on my March statement seemed unchanged, I called again. Each time I called they brushed me off by giving me the confirmation number in their records.
Knowing what I know now, I realize that they were buying time to slip through the 120-day window from the date of my end-of-August purchase. I have no backing from my credit card company now and they know it.
The truth is, these people are manipulative, persuasive and determined to slip through any crack to get what they want.
Status as of 3-23-09: After more than half a dozen phone calls to CFS today, I am being told that they investigated the credit they issued me in November, and found that the merchant account that issued it is now closed. They claim that the credit has been issued, they have the confirmation number, and there is nothing more they can do. I will not let this rest. I have reported them to the FTC, the National DoNotCall Registry, the FL State Attorney General and now the WA Attorney General. I am also contacting good friend at the IRS fraud division, and have posted my experience on every fraud-detecting web site I can find.
A full refund is my immediate desired outcome, but I have politely given them many, many opportunities to rectify this situation with a refund and they continue to give me the runaround (three different customer service reps have hung up on me today because I continue to press for an acceptable solution to our problem.)
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