On July 2nd, in a moment of temporary insanity, I fell for this company's pitch that I could make a mint, buying & selling mortgage "paper" Mike Corradini spent about 1-1/2 hours in his pitch and I finally acquiesed, giving them my credit card number. MISTAKE!
After the pitch I was handed over to a secretary, to get my information. During her speil, she mentioned that I would have 3 days after receipt of their instructional material to back out of the deal.
Over the next day, I considered this deal (finally) and looked up the complaints on the company (finding some), and decided that it was probably a scam, that after paying them $3580, and trying to find mortgage paper to resell (to Stafanchik), I would find that I would find little privately held paper worth having, and that the Stefanchik Organization would not agree to pay more for the paper than I could get it for. (The old work at home scam, where what you produce is never up to company standards, and they have simply sold you some raw materials at an inflated price.)
So, I wrote a letter to the credit card company and sent it to them on July 4. I also sent a copy of the letter by e-mail to the Stefanchik Organization on that date. I had to wait until July 7th, when the Post Office was next open, to send a copy of the letter to Stefanchik, certified, return receipt requested.
In this letter I stipulated that I intended to refuse to accept the instructional package when it arrived, as I didn't feel it proper to accept it if I intended to back out. The package arrive July 7 in the early afternoon and I refused delivery.
Later that day, I received a call from Mike Corradini. I told him of my decision (July 7) and was barraged with belittling pursuasion that I had already committed to it, and that I couldn't back out. When persisted, he said they would take it into consideration, but couldn't credit my credit card account under any circumstances, and that it would take up to 2 months for them to write me a check for the amount.
(I saw this as an attempt to delay their compliance until they could say that it was past the time I could renig. His attitude of refusal to even consider returning my money and insisting on pursuading me to continue in the deal convinced me that I was correct in assuming this was a scam, designed to capture the customer's (large) deposit, with no intention of fulfilling their promises.)
Mike Corradini said he would call back the next day, in spite of the fact that I told him that I would not change my mind, and that would be a waste of time.
The next day, a "Warren" called, saying he was Mike's supervisor, and wanted to know what the deal was. I filled him in and he insisted that I couldn't get my money back in the form of a credit card credit, and that it would take up to 2 months to send me a check.
I failed to mention to him the obvious: It had taken them only moments to charge my credit card account, but now couldn't get my money back to me in less that 2 months? So, the next day, July 9, I called back, and spoke to Warren, who now would tell me his last name (he wouldn't before) as Jones. Warren seemed much more conciliatory on this contact, and finally agreed that I would be able to recieve my money back before the end of the month (which I needed to avoid the difficulty of paying the full amount of the credit card account, and would thus incur a large interest payment) I felt rather good about this, and relaxed a bit.
However, yesterday, July 11, I got a call from Mike Corradini, in which he sounded as if I had never had a conversation with Warren Jones, or had sent them an e-mail on this on July 4, or a certified letter on July 7. He insisted that I was making a big mistake and they couldn't possibly get my money back to me in less than two months. He gave as an excuse that it would harm their relationship with some other company if they tried earlier.
Pressed as to what he was talking about, he inferred that they didn't actually collect my money from the credit card company, but thru another company, and they were parcelled out the payments to the Stafanchik Org, in small amounts. (I checked the credit card charge, and it was paid to the Stefanchik Organization, so that was a lie.)
When I restated the complaint that I had that the buying and reselling of paer was full of holes, he said that I could benefit from finding people whose credit was not accepted by banks, etc and that they bought such 1st mortgages. This is totally outside my understanding, and certainly not a job I would undertake, bankrolling acceptance in the job with my payment of $3580. I told Mike that this whole thing was akin to "buying a job", and not something I'm interested in.
When Mike first called, he complained that they had not received the instructional material back, which would include a personal profile on me, which he said they would need to refund my money! (Why?) I told him that I had not even accepted delivery of the material. He objected strenously to that, saying I should have, and that they needed the profile.
About then, Mike Corradini hung up on me.
I firmly believe that this group is attempting to stall me around, until I perhaps give up, or accept the original deal, and coninuing the scam.
The thing is, they offered a three day period after receipt of instructional material for me to back out and are now trying to stall me out of using that right.
I pleaded with them to not take this fee from me as it represented most of my emergency money. This met with derision, saying that a 77 year-old man didn't need that and could make lots more than that by going along with them.in other words, they simply refuse to take "no" for an answer.
I am 77, currently taking care of my 86 year-old aunt, who has Alzheimer's, and have no way to make up any loss of these funds. I advised Mike of these circumstances, but he was unresponsive.
My credit card company says that they have no power to refuse a charge, unless the company involved has a policy of refunds, and that I should call them back if resolution has not been made within 15 days.
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