My elderly aunt who lives in Northern Minnesota got caught up in Leonetti's scam in October. She answered the ad for the $9.95 book called "money without money".
She is a stroke victim on a fixed income who was trying to find a way to make extra money. Within 3 weeks John Stefanchik called her to discuss the program. He convinced her that she was capable of making a large amount of money doing the mortgage brokering (in northern Minnesota?). He said all she needed to do was go through the course using the books and tapes they would provide. All he needed was her credit card number and not knowing any better, she gave it to him.
What she recieved was 6 paper back books and 6 auto tapes and was charged $4,000.00 on her Discover Card. She read through the books and listened to the tapes and at the very end found a slip of paper that said she had 3 days to resend her order. Needless to say at this a lot more than 3 days passed. When she called the company to tell them she couldn't afford the program, she was told by Mr Stefanchik that all she had to do to recoup her money was to work harder. When she said she was doing the best she could he told her she needed to come to one of their seminars in Salt Lake City and they would teach her how to make money. They would make all the arrangements for her to stay in Salt Lake City for 3 days (on her credit card).
At this point I would really like to know why Dicover did not red flag her account when all of a sudden a person on a fixed income who only charged gas, groceries, etc in the past suddenly has only charged a $4000.00 charge. And then continues to let her spend and let her charge. She is now paying 20% of her income towards this bill.
UN Fortunatley she called the Salt Lake City Better Buisness Bureau and they gave Bob Leonetti great rating. Said they had never had any complaints. Still suspcious she called me and asked me to check it out. It didn't take much on the Internet to find out what a shyster this man is. So now I am just trying to help her in any way I can and hopefully stop and help other people avoid this scam.
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