After combing through my account transactions, I noticed charges made by a company that I had never heard of. The telephone number of the company was on the transaction, the charge appeared as: Visa Purchase (non-pin) Ap9*24protectplu800-211-9749ct. They had made two seperate charges to my account. Once on 2-1-08, for the amount of $19.95, which I overlooked and assumed I had mistakenly used the wrong card, and was charged overdraft fees (the information they stole was for my checking account.) The next charge to my account was made on 3-3-08 and was also for $19.95.
I immediately entered that phone number into google searchbar, where I found loads of hits for unauthorized charged having been made by this company. I called my bank, who was very helpful and said that they had heard of this company (go US Bank!) Addittional props to them: they pointed out the first charge made to my account by this fraudulant company. They are currently filing fraud against this company.
I did call the company, to give them a chance to explain. Explanation was such a load of B.S. I had recently made a commitment with another company to pay a fee if they could provide their services. No services were available for me, and no charge was ever taken from my account by this company. (Company was www.lookupanyone.com and the agreement amount was for $7.95, they never took this amount from me and were not able to fulfill their end of the services. I have no problem with this company, they did everything that they stated that they would.)
So 24 Protect Plus claimed that I had agreed to a 7 day trial period of their company and its usages. They then proceeded to tell me that I received a ten dollar off of my transaction with www.lookupanyone.com to agree to this 7 day trial. My transaction with www.lookupanyone.com was not even for ten dollars, and they never once touched my bank account. I advised the customerservice representitive of this, Emma #26445, and she did then agree to credit my account for the most recent charge.
I explained further that two charges of $19.95 had been made form my account by them, and that I was aware that they had stolen this information and that my bank was cuurently filing the fraud charges against them. Emma then told me that she could only reimburse me for one charge, I would need to speak with a supervisor for further assistance. I was then put through to Wilfred, #7329 at the company.
I made it very clear that I knew the situation, knew of their scheming reputation and that my bank was already involved. I also made it undeniable that I never did agree to these charges, never authorized any kind of relationship with this company and certainly never gave them my bank acocunt information and that I was very aware of this and very conservative of the amount of online transactions that I am involved in, making them very easy to keep track of.
He was made aware of the situation and that I had already taken action with my bank by Emma and was willing to remove both charges. I told him that I wanted to be refunded as well for the overdraft charges that had resulted from this. He advised me to fax them my bank statement, without highlighting or deleting anything except for my bank account number, and they would reimburse the charges.
While I find it great that I was lucky enough to have a mouthful of things to defend every limb that they could stretch for, I do feel tht if I had went into this by contacting them first, or if I had a less sympathetic bank I would still be fighting tooth and nail. So it is my opinion, since it will take appoximately the same amount of time for either company (my bank, US BANK, or FRAUD superstars 24 protect plus) to complete the 'investigation' that I will let my bank go for the fraud charges. It's legal and documented proof of what they are doing. I feel that Wilfred was so very willing to reverse the charges because he was very aware that they were commiting these acts. At least some form of dispute or terms of agreement could have been thrown in my face if he had any. He was very obviously used to this form of contact and knows when he is backed into a corner.
Be informed before you contact them, because they are. If you sound informed and confident it will take you much further han if you sound unsure and naive. Have all of your evidence in front of you so that you can deter any validation they are trying to create. Contact your bank first, they seem to be afraid of the fraud charges and are very willing to return the moneys they claim you agreed to pay because they know you did not, and with a fraud charge, they can not win.
You can have your money back in 2-4 days, I have opted to take the longer route just for prinicipal and so that this is one less stolen account that they can get away with and one more that any lawyer could add to their list if ever a class action lawsuit is taken against this company. I do not spend my days trying to ruin people's lives and take their jobs and livelihood, and unless I felt strongly that this company is intentionally STEALING credit card information from the web and thereafter taking unauthorized funds form said accounts. For this reason, I would like to see them wiped out of the business world and intend to proceed with legal action so that it remains documented evidence against this company.
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