My step mother is an older person who lives in San Diego County, CA. Handi Team induced her through aggressive telemarketing to purchase low cost goods at ridiculous prices (examples: a small number of light bulbs for $75; two boxes of cheap trash bags for $100; cheap wind chimes for $100).
Their hook is that Handi Team claims that the "balance" goes to support special olympics, breast cancer research, recovering addicts and whatever else they can think of. There is nothing that they will not try to get the victim on the hook.
Once a payment is made to Handi Team they are relentless and will continue calls and ship goods without authorization with invoices attached which they hope will be paid.
They were able to extract sufficient information to directly debit my step mother's checking account with Automatic Clearing House debits without authorization from her or her Trustee. If payment is not made for a shipment, Handi Team pursues agressive and threatening methods to intimidate the victim into paying amounts for which they may or may not have received the useless goods.
See http://usacomplaints.com/Telemarketers/HANDI-TEAM-WADE-KENI/handi-team-owned-by-wade-kenis-9fa98.htm for a detailed report of the operation by another correspondent. Of course each such report should be judged on the merits, but this particular one seems to ring true having dealt with them.
Under no circumstances should you deal with this organization.
We have reported Handi Team's activities to the San Diego Public Guardian, the San Diego Attorney General's Economic Fraud Division, and the California Attorney General's office.
The best advice, however, is if you hear the name "Handi Team" or a related name such as "Handi Tech" on a call, inform the caller that you are aware of their activities and hang up. One can also register with the FTC at www.donotcall. Gov which may block them from calling since they are most likely a registered charity as defined by the FTC.
This is a predatory fraud operation and should be treated as such.
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