This morning I read about Summer, in Franklin, North Carolina.
Summer, my husband and I just had the exact same thing happen to us except for different dates.
My husband received a phone call on May 19 from a solicitor. He told them he was not interested in what they were selling. The solicitor told him it was easy and said that he already had our banking information and address which he proceeded to recite to my husband. My husband said that was our information and asked him how he got it. The solicitor proceeded to try to sell my husband something. My husband never once gave any kind of verbal authorization for anything.
I was out of town at the time and when I got home, I discovered that $149.00 had been debited out of our account by a company called Freedom Gold from Largo, Florida. I filed a fraud dispute with our bank and we got our money back. We also opened a new checking account and have been waiting for things to clear our old account before closing it. After the Memorial Day holiday, I discovered that another $59.95 had been debited out of our account, this time by a company called Distinct Advantage from Largo, Florida. I am in the process of disputing this as well.
Apparently Freedom Gold and Distinct Advantage are sub-companies of Suntasia. Beware, Teleflex is also a sub-company of Suntasia. Apparently what they do is use a larger company to process their charges which makes it harder to track them down. The checks are being drawn up through Largo Mall Financial Center, a sub-bank of Wachovia Bank. How do I know this, I called the bank after my husband and I were scammed. They were very nice and seemed as frustrated by this situation. Our current system in the United States makes it easy for scam artists while the people they victimized are given the run around.
People who commit fraud don't just cost their victims money and time, they waste the money and time of everyone they come in contact with. The amount of money they have tried to scam from us is small in comparison to the combined money they have cost the multitudes of people they have affected. Times that by them all and I am sure they are costing honest people and companies millions of dollars. These people must be stopped.
In the meantime, I filed a police report, a report with the BBB and I am righting this site. I intend on contacting everyone I can about this racket.
The best thing that honest people can do to protect themselves from situations such as this, is don't give out any personal information over the phone. Only use credit cards and cash while traveling. Be careful who you write checks to. We have adopted writing checks only to major companies. Don't associate with time shares or anything that may seem to good to be true. Nothing is free (except to scam artists-they have not gotten this concept so far).
Last but not least, don't give any solicitor the time of day. Use your Caller ID.
Get a Tele-zapper and register with www.donotcall. Gov.
Angela
Howell, Michigan
U.S.A.
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