Home-based business opportunities are interesting to me. My desire is to supplement my income with a part time home-based business. I received an email that caught my eye that described a home-based business and getting in on the ground floor selling Prepaid MasterCards. The company touted You're in Business for Yourself, NOT By Yourself. I assumed this meant being in business with MasterCard, Debit Corporation of America and an FDIC insured bank.
After submitting my name and phone number to get more information about this business opportunity, I received a call from Jay Maine. Jay introduced me to Debit Corporation of America (DCOA) and the concepts of selling prepaid MasterCards. After speaking with Jay, I requested their literature package and tape to understand the business a little more. I received the literature a couple of days later and all looked pretty good. There slogan sounded great; "You're in Business for Yourself, not by yourself." He recommended I contact some of the folks listed in the reference list to get their impression of DCOA.
I contacted a lady on the list named Jaqueline Zahl in Chicago. She indicated this was a great opportunity to get in on the ground floor of something big and that she hit her breakeven point at 10 months. She stated location is everything. I contacted the company again and spoke with Jay Maine. We discussed the opportunity and it sounded very legitimate to me. He stated that they had spent thousands of dollars on research and determined the best way to sell these prepaid MasterCards. He also stated that the MasterCards would be provided through an FDIC insured bank 4eft (for electronic funds transfer) and thousands of MoneyGram kiosks throughout the US.
I decided to go with this opportunity and on December 29th Jay Maine and I filled out the purchase order over the phone. I signed for the purchase of two (2) MasterCard Display Systems with $700 face value in Prepaid MasterCards. I wrote a check for the initial $1,000 deposit and told him I would have the balance within a week. We spoke for a bit to get to know each other and Jay mentioned he came from a family of Marines. I am a Marine myself and because of this commonality I trusted Jay as I would another fellow Marine. We have a slogan in the Marine Corp which is Semper Fi. Semper Fi means always faithful. Jay Maine used this slogan several times and consequently I began to trust him, as I had trusted other Marines with my life in the past. I had no reason not to. He said he would have a FedEx truck come by my house the very next day to pick up my check "to get things rolling." The FedEx truck showed up the next day just like he said. The next day I also got to work on borrowing the balance of the money out of my 401K retirement account. I submitted a request to borrow $10000 from my 401k account and had it transferred to my credit union checking account. I notified Jay that I had the remainder of the money coming around the 7th or 8th of January. He provided me an account to which I could wire the balance due. On January 12th, I wire transferred $8,845 to the following account:
Sun Trust Bank of South Florida
1900 E. Hallandale Beach Blvd.
Hallandale, FL 33009
routing# 061000104
Acct# 1000014850894
I called Jay Maine and told him I wired the balance to the specified account he provided and he told me I would receive my systems in 5 - 10 days. He told me my locator would be contacting me to establish contact and he or she would be the person to provide me the locations for my display systems. Lisa contacted me a couple of days later and told me she would be handling the process from that point forward and if I had any questions to give her a call. Again this was just as Jay Maine stated.
I contacted Lisa a couple of days later and asked if I could get some locations from her so I could determine which locations I thought would be best. When discussing locations with the Lisa she made it sound like they had already pre-qualified locations to sell the prepaid MasterCard. She stated they already had agreement from individuals to locate display systems and would not contact them until I had the cards and systems ready to go. She said she had 30 or so locations that are pre-qualified. I asked if I could have a couple of the locations to see if they even looked like good prospects. She insisted I wait until I get my machines before I go looking at prospective sites. I called again asking about my cards and machines and this time she said they were waiting to get the codes for the cards from MasterCard so that when customers used the cards, my code would be associated with my specific cards so I would receive my recurring revenue from the card. I was told I would receive $0.50 every time the card was "refilled." It was at some point in my conversation with Lisa that I began to smell something really odd.
I really wanted this to work because I had spent so much money in hopes of having my own vending business that appeared to have a lot of potential. I really thought this was a legitimate business based on what Jay Maine told me, all the nicely printed literature and the cards being sponsored by MasterCard, and an FDIC insured bank. Things happened as he said they would. After all he was a Marine. I could trust him. The fact that there are thousands of Moneygram kiosks available all over the US and that one of them was recently installed at Albertson's down the street from my home reinforced the idea that this was a good deal.
A couple of days later I received a call from a person named Bill Judd. He told me he had a guy in Texas that was getting a divorce and needed to sell half of his display systems for $1800 a piece. He said if I were to buy three of them they would change the cost of any future displays I bought to $1800. Well this really got me upset because I had just bought 2 for almost $5000 a piece. He said I was buying into the business that's the reason the price was so high on the first two displays. I refused to spend any more money on this ugly thing.By this time I had not only an odd but also fearful feeling in my gut.
I began digging deeper into Debit Corporation of America on the internet. As I began reading through the entire search list for Debit Corp of America, I discovered some listings at usacomplaints.com. I began reading some of these reports and discovered that the people running Debit Corp of America were known to run other business opportunity scams through company names such as TeleKing, et al. I read on and discovered a lengthy complaint by a man named Tom Tucker in Desert Hot Springs, California. I dialed 411 and asked for Tom Tucker's number in Desert Hot Springs, CA and was able to get his phone number. I contacted Mr. Tucker and he told me his story. I learned from Thomas that the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services will not approve Debit Corporation of America's renewal application for selling business opportunities in Florida. The letter he faxed to me indicated on the same day my money had been wired to those people was the day the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services served DCOA with a Notice of Deficiency and Order To Show Cause.
It is very clear to me now that Debit Corp of America is a fraud. Jay Maine, or whoever he is, lied to me over and over again. Lisa lied to me. The whole thing is a scam! I contacted Tony McDowell and Raymond Conklin at FDACS. They recommended I submit my complaint to the Department complaint website and the Internet Fraud Complaint Center. I filed complaints with both organizations.
So, as of February 6 I still have not received any cards or sales display systems. Nor do I expect to. I am very disturbed about this whole thing and want to know what I can do to get my money back. Additionally I will do whatever it takes to contribute to these people going to prison. This is hard earned money that I withdrew from my retirement account as a loan. I am convinced Debit Corporation of America is a fraud and they stole $9845 and a lot of time from me. Now I'm stuck with this huge debt, and no business, nothing.
I called DCOA numerous times over the last couple of weeks and they have not returned my calls. These people are not only thieves, they are cowards! This is a SCAM and I will not be satisfied until I get my $9865 back!!!
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