On 1/12/05 I received about the 15th harrassing phone call from a program called Buyer's Union offered by Premier Benefit's. I had been receiving calls twice a day from them. They were rude, always interupting my baby's nap or a meal, etc. I had asked them numerous times not to call and to take me off their list. For one, they never shut up and there was always a "but, maam let me explain to you the benefits of our program." No offense to those of middle eastern decent, but it was always some foreigner who couldn't speak clear English and was incredibly rude; giving a bad reputation to cultures from which I know many good people have come.
Anyway, this morning particular morning they caught me at a moment of weakness. I was so burnt out of the interuption to my hectic schedule, of the interuption to my children's life and of the stress of having an injured husband who had to make daily therapy visits 45 miles away that I finally gave in. I said "fine, I'll pay the $3.95 just to get you off my back as long as you can promise me that I will never have to pay anything again. I am not interested in anything I will get charged monthly fee for or anything that I will have to cancel in order to avoid charges. I do not have the time for that and my life is hectic and I don't want to have to remember to call and cancel!!!" The sales rep replied "oh, I assure you ma'am you only have to pay the $3.95 shipping and handling because we want to offer you $200 dollars in free grocery vouchers to your local markets and send you information on joining our buyers union so you can see how it works. If you don't like our program there is nothing to buy ever again." "ok, as long as you swear I will never have to pay anything again."
So she wanted my credit card info, but I don't used credit cards anymore, so in my moment of stupidity I told her I was giving her my checking account number... Though I did reconfirm that nothing else would ever be charged again as it would cause problems with my account. Once again, she assured me that I would only be charged the one time fee. So I proceeded to give her my info and they began to do the "recorded conversation questioning" to get my agreement for the check draft. They proceeded to ask me if I was interested in other info about other programs. To one which they told me was just free info I may have said yes, but to anything for which they admitted a fee I replied no.
Once that portion of the call was over, she pipes in with "You should recieve your packet in approx. 3 weeks and if you do not wish to join our program you must call and cancel within 30 days of receiving you packet or you will be charged $119.95" At this point I was completely livid and the sales rep was getting an earful. I was yelling, "At the beginning of this conversation, before I gave you all my personal info, I told you I was not interested in anything that I would have to call and cancel to avoid charges and you assured me this was not the case. You said a one time fee of $3.95" She continued her sales person bs and of course at this point they had wasted 15 minutes of my time and I had to go pick up my daughter from school.
I was also stuck because these freaks had all my personal info so then I had to get a confirmation number so I would have something to reference to fight this. When I got transferred to a supervisor for the final authorization I gave him an earful about how the girl had misinformed me and now it was too late to cancel because I had to leave and I didn't have time to wait. He also assured me that I could call and cancel in a few weeks as soon as I got my packet. So I got her ID# and the customer service phone number and rushed out the door. Of course I could never reach anyone at the phone number I was given and so I waited for my packet.
On 2/17/05 I finally received my packet in the mail. I opened it immediately and called and cancelled the program. Of course it said that you had to be current member to use the $200 worth of vouchers that you would receive in the next 30 days and of course that packet made it to my mail box in 5 weeks, not 3. I told the customer rep that it was a total scam and that they weren't "my vouchers to keep wether I joined the program or not" as the sales rep had promised.
Once I opened the packet I had an even more horrible feeling than on the day I originally gave in to their solicitation call. I immediately went to the internet to check on my banking account which mysteriously had only $24 dollars in it. As I began to look through my statement I could see that between 1/20 and 2/4 someone had taken $3.95, $3.95, $119.90, $119.90, and $149.90. Next I called the bank to order hard copies of these bogus 5 check numbers. When I got the $149.90 hard copy it said Call One. I had never heard of this company and called them immediately and found out their parent company was Premier Benefits and that all the charges were shipping and start of fees for the sub-companies of Premier One. That I had been charged by Premier Movie Pass ($149.90), Buyer's Union ($119.90 which is non-refundable no matter what, he tells me) and Call One ($119.90).
He informed me that he would be sending me a claim form and that I would have to fill it out and send it back before they could refund me the Premier Movie Pass and Call One fees. Who wants to guess whether or not I will ever see that info. I called my bank and they are willing to investigate the fraud, but as of now I have -. 04 in my checking account and my husband has been out of work since last October with a back injury. I am a stay at home mom and we have exhausted all our other resources with his unpaid medical bills and hour living expenses. I am looking for employment, but until then how am I supposed to feed my baby and my older daughter with -. 04$?
I literally don't have a penny to my name. How will I buy diapers? And last, but not least how can these people sleep at night and who is out there protecting us from them? No one should mess with the elderly, the disabled or a mohter. My maternal instinct has kicked in and I am ready for a fight! I plan to use every legal means to get my money back and stop this company from hurting families. I am sick of America being flooded with tyrants of any race, creed or color who will steal, lie and cheat to make a buck.
Angela
Boring, Oregon
U.S.A.
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