4/26/05 10:30 P.M.
Earlier this evening my husband and I were fraudulently duped into purchasing John Beck's Mentoring system that included coaching and software. After the whirlwind phone call, we had a couple minutes to sit back and think about certain things that were done and said throughout the conversation and almost instantly felt uneasy about things. The following are a few things that did not seem right.
1) When talking with Noel Winters, he had informed us that he was a youth minister and that of course integrity was everything when my husband said he was skeptical. Noel said that if they get even 3 complaints through a credit card company in a month, that they would no longer have business with that company. So, we believed him. When I asked Noel what his net worth was, using this process, he said 3 million dollars. When Noel was going through all of our credit card information (wanting to know what balances were owed, and what credit limits we had) he had said it was to make sure that we had enough of credit available to use OPM other people's money (i.E. The bank's money) to invest in real estate so that if they used us for their infomercials, that they could legitimately say that we had purchased property without using any of our own money. After we had gotten off the phone, my husband and I both wondered how we could use our credit cards for real estate investments.
2) Ironically, the credit available that we had left on the card was almost EXACTLY the amount that he said the charge was for the counseling and software. When my husband (we were both on the phone throughout the conversation) asked him if everyone gets charged the same amount ($14,485 for this counseling and software), Noel adamantly said yes. When my husband was concerned with giving our card # over the phone, Noel responded by insisting that he had contacted us because we purchased John Beck's Free and Clear and that if they wanted to scam us they would have overcharged our credit card then.By the way we had $10,000 of credit available on our American Express and $5,000 available on our Discover. All of our other cards were at the credit limit so how convenient that they charged almost the exact amount we had available.
3) Noel made us feel like we were fortunate to get chosen for this opportunity because he said that only a select few (35-40 out of thousands) would be selected for this opportunity to invest this huge amount of money to join this special team. Unfortunately we were lied to, and it's apparent that they take any and everyone that is willing to fork over the last of their credit limit to try and get ahead.
4) We had wondered, again when we hung up the phone, why the conversation with the Noel was not recorded, yet the conversation with the woman charging our cards was recorded. When she asked us if he had promised that we would make money through their counseling, etc., we said no, because it's true that he did state that he could not put an exact dollar amount on the amount of income we would make; however, he did say that we definitely would receive the $14,485 back in the taxes we'd be spared from now owning our own business and that within 8 to 10 weeks we would be making even more money off of our real estate investments if we followed what our coach said. He could not pinpoint an exact amount but definitely said it would be more than our initial investment.
With now a lot of skepticism with things just not sitting right, my husband and I immediately (within an hour) contacted Discover (which they charged $4,985) and AMEX (which they charged $10,000) to stop the charges. Unfortunately the charges had already been made to Discover and were pending with AMEX and were told to try and request a refund directly from the company before filing the dispute. We tried to contact Noel and the company again tonight, but they were closed for the evening. I will call again tomorrow, first thing, to tell them to credit our accounts and to cancel the introductory phone call from the coach on Monday, May 2nd at 4:30P.M. (not the counseling session) before we receive any paperwork or counseling sessions or software. If they won't credit our accounts tomorrow, we will immediately file a dispute with our credit card companies which are already aware of our intentions as of tonight.
After my husband and I finished talking, we got online to see if we could find out if other consumers had complaints. I was DESTROYED when I realized how many complaints there were against this company. I was ESPECIALLY upset when I realized that Noel had completely lied to us, and it was apparent that they did NOT charge EVERYONE the same $14,485 as Noel Winters had said they did. The charges were so varied that it became extremely apparent that the company was charging consumers based on the credit available on their cards, and other consumers had stated the same belief in their online complaints.
My husband and I are hardworking individuals that have served (I'm an Air Force veteran) and are serving (he's an air force pilot) our country and are trying to get ahead in life. This debt, that we thought would help us, has just put an even bigger burden on our life. Because of this, if we do not get our refund, our lives will be much worse off due to the financial and emotional stresses of this additional $14,485 debt. Please ensure that this company does not get away with this.
If they do not credit our AMEX and DISCOVER we will dispute it with both credit card companies, file a complaint with BBB, file a complaint with the FBI and IFCC and write letters and make phone calls to CNN, 60 Minutes, 20/20, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, World Report, Money Magazine, 48 Hours, Dateline, NBC Nightly News, ABC News, and all other leading news agencies to blow the cover on this horrible scam! The truly scary thing is we have not been able to find hardly any positive consumer reports supporting John Beck's coaches for the thousands of dollars they charge.in a world with so many horrible things happening to people, how could companies and individuals STEAL from innocent people trying to better their lives?
Completely sick to our stomachs,
Sharene and Jason
P.S. I have included hyperlinks of complaints from other consumers that have been raped by this company. Also, we have not signed, nor will never sign any contracts or sign for any items that Noel Winters said we will be receiving in the next couple of days. We will have them returned unsigned for (hopefully they're sent FedEx as the company said they would be) as proof that, not only did we refuse to sign any contracts or accept any products, but have no intention of going any further with this company or accepting any coaching. Also, I'm printing this letter out and sealing it in an envelope and mailing it back to myself as proof that these things did occur on the dates/times that I've stated.
God help us get our refunds!
Http://usacomplaints.com/reports/ripoff111802.htm
Http://usacomplaints.com/results.Asp? Q1=ALL&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0&submit2=Search! &q5=john becks
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