On November 8 I received a phone call from a person telling me that the government owed me money and that I would be getting a grant of $5,000 deposited into my account tomorrow. The person I spoke with said his name was Mr. Smith and he gave me a badge ID saying that he worked for the US government. He then told me my address and asked me to confirm it was correct. He then said he needed my routing number to deposit the money. Which I gave.
Then he said he needed my account number, which I questioned. He said he worked for a government agency, I have his badge number so why did I need to question. Everything was legit according to him. If I gave him everything I would have $5,000 in my account the next day. So I gave him my account number, he gave me a processing number to use as reference and told me I would have $5,000 in my account on Wednesday, November 9th.
I kept saying to him, what is the catch, any money out of my pocket and he said no, over and over. I said I will not be charged for anything, no hidden fees right, and he told me there is no charges to you. I became nervous after I hung up the phone with him and called my bank. They said there was nothing I could do until something occurred to my account. I called the 1-877-851-4366 number and spoke with a live person who told me first they needed to deduct $49.95 out of my account.
I want crazy and said I never agreed to this, you can't do that, what I was told is different, I want to speak to a manager (they were supposedly all in a meeting), do not deduct the money, I want my calls pulled and reviewed, etc, etc. She told me ok, it will not happen. Friday, November 11th, I received another call from them saying they could not process the $5,000 so I had to go through the confirmation process again.
I said no, send me the paperwork, and I will review it and hung up. This time a supposed manager called me back and would not take no for an answer so I hung up. Then they called me back 4 more times, one call after the other, which I did not answer. Today, November 15, I see a deduction for $49.95 out of my account from them. I called my bank and they told me I needed to go in and fill out a dispute form at a branch.
I called 'Advantage America' and I yelled and screamed and they said that they had to take the money. I told them I did not want the money taken out and the last person told me that they would not. Then I said, how much more money are you taking out of my account, it better not be anything, right? Then the woman on the other end got really quiet and said nothing else, and I said excuse me? And again she said nothing else will come out of your account.
After that call I became scared and started to research and found the consumer complaints site. I went to the bank right away and closed my bank account and opened a new one with a different number. My bank is doing a fraud investigation and hopefully I will get my $49.95 back. I am also filing a report with the police department.
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