2 years ago, looking for a financial company willing to give me a $10,000 loan to pay off bills and IRS due to divorce, I found this company on the web. After contacting me that they found funding for me by a private lender, I was sent (overnight from a company in Canada) a cashier's check for $3,500.00, but I had to Western Union them $1,730.12 and they would, in turn, forward the rest of the $10,000 (along with sending a copy of my driver's license, social security card and payroll slip).
Two days later, after depositing the check and withdrawing money from my account the same day, I did what I should have done before, and that was call the Better Business Bureau for that state. I was told that, not only had the BBB received numerous complaints about this company, but that the address didn't even exist.
Apparently the names, Cris Smith as Loan Representative and David Covo, President/CEO, are bogus as well.
I immediately called the Federal Trade Commission, who took a verbal report from me, on the phone (but never asked for any documentation), told me to call Social Security (which I did), and then gave me the name of Canada's equivilent to the FTC, Phonebusters.com. Phonebusters asked me to fax them all documentation, which I did. I also filed a report, online with the FBI's web fraud, along with first notifying my bank, that I had just been scammed and I believed the cashier's check might have been fraudulent.
Not only have I never heard back from Canada (I still have the overnight form listing the name and phone number of the company which sent the cashier's check, which is: Martins Motors, 180 Dufferin St., ON M6K 3H7 - 416.588.9363), but I never heard from the FBI or the FTC. But I have heard from my bank, with the attitude that I am the one that perpetrated the fraud, even though I called the bank Immedidately, the moment I suspected that I had been scammed. Now, I am on the hook for $3,500.00 to the bank, along with being treated as if I'm the crook.
This website address for this company is still listed on the internet, but is completely different.
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