9/26/02
Dear friends and fellow rip-offees!
It has been less than a week since I posted my first report about this company and there were 107 reports then. It seems that MWI must have started a new string of rip-offs very recently under different names. Now there are 125 reports and my hunch is there will be many more! They picked on the WRONG people this time. I am recovering from a disability and I have a LOT of time on my hands, so I have been quite busy this week.! I have done a lot of checking and have found lots of really disturbing stuff about old MWI.
I sent the following e-mail to the entire state legislature of Nebraska and a similar one to the entire Connecticut legislature. I have also sent copies to every state Attorney General I could find an e-mail address for, the US Attorney General, Bill O'Reilly at Fox News and a number of other places. The next letter is one response that I got almost immediately from a Senator's office in Nebraska. I have received others, but this one is the best. Action works people! Let enough of your elected people know and somebody will respond. I plan to continue writing people and spreading the word. I realize that many of you don't have the kind of time that I do, but every little bit helps. Tell your friends and neighbors! Also, go to www.memberworks.com and leave a note. I have left several that were not quite as polite as the one that follows (hee hee).
The letter I sent to 49 Senators in Nebraska.
Dear Distiguished Senators of the Nebraska Legislature,
I am writing on behalf of my sister and her husband, Mr. And Mrs. Bernard and Sandra Honigfort, of Frankfort, MI, who received a charge for $139.95 on their credit card (which put them over their limit) for some type of membership from MWI Galleria, whose offices I believe are in Stamford, Connecticut. Having never even heard of this company, my sister called them and got the runaround. Luckily her credit card company is dealing with the problem from their end. However my sister is a working mother with 4 teenagers and a one year old grandson to care for and she is not one to be messed with, so she and I did a search on the web and have found evidence of misdoings from this company and a number of its aliases leading back several years.
Apparently this company receives credit card and bank account info from different sources and helps itself to charges of varying amounts depending on whichever "program" is said to have been offered. Then they just don't deliver. When contacted they give some description about a trial membership and a "negative option activation" or something like that, which means basically if you don't want it you have to call and tell them so within 30 days of the date they claim you agreed to it. But since no one agreed to it to begin with the pending charge is a surprise when it goes through and, as in my sister's case, a cause of further over limit charges on her card.
We have found at least two instances where MWI was investigated by different states, (NY and MN) and a couple of other lawsuits. If you are familiar with The complaint website, you will find 125 complaints there, including mine, about MWI and many of its alter egos in a bunch of different states, including especially lately, Nebraska. We would like this company and its aliases to be vigorously investigated, from whichever agencies can do the best job.
I have sent letters to all Congress members and Senators in Connecticut as well as the Governor and Lt. Governor. I have sent copies of this letter to a number of different outlets, including the US Attorney General's office, our own Michigan AG, Jennifer Granholm, all the other state AG e-mail addresses I could find, Fox News, and a number of my local media outlets. We know that the branch of this company in Nebraska is located at 9500 West Dodge Street, Omaha.
According to one source we have, the company that tried this scam with us is located at 9 W. Broad St., Stamford, CT 06902, but we know that the branch in Nebraska uses the same web address, www.memberworks.com. According to this site, the CEO of this company is a man named Gary Larson. The website lists 15 different "programs", covernames for whichever deal they claim to be selling. The name of the "program" which charged my sisters account is not among them, which makes us wonder if it is a new alias and just how many aliases they have. We would appreciate that some action be taken. Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Norman Lovegrove
Elberta, MI
This letter I received in less than a day from Sen Pam Redfield's office
Dear Mr. Lovegrove:
Thank you for contacting our office. I hope this news offers you some sense of relief. Last year, our office introduced a piece of legislation (LB 904). The purpose of this bill is to protect consumers' credit accounts from charges without the express authorization of the consumer. This bill is consistent with our existing statute which protects consumers' checking, savings, share or other similar accounts. The bill was passed out of committee and made it to General file before we ran
out of time in our legislative session. We will re-introduce this bill in January.
It remains my understanding that our Attorney General's office is aware of this situation with the Omaha office known as "Memberworks". Ibelieve an investigation is or was underway and you may want to contact their Consumer Protection division at 1-800-727-6432 and discuss this with them.
I am sorry your sister & her husband had to experience this situation and I applaud your efforts to protect others from becoming victims, as well. We will go forward with this legislation and continue to feel positive about the outcome.
Thank you for contacting our legislature and our office.
Sincerely,
Tanya L. Borjes-Hayes
Legislative Aide
Office of Senator Pam Redfield
Legislative District 12
State Capitol
PO Box 94604
Lincoln, NE 68509-4604
Phone: 402-471-2623
FAX: 402-479-0912
thayes@unicam. State. Ne.Us
Norm
Elberta, Michigan
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