This scam happened to my 80-year-old mother who had recently had a stroke. She knows not to give out personal information and says she didn't. Thankfully, I pay her bills and I'm in her online banking quite often. It was only because of this that I even saw the $447.34 electronic check debit from her account. I was thinking right away it must be a scam because my mom would never agree to something like that without checking with one of her three daughters first. She couldn't recall ever talking to anyone with this company or what any of this was about. So I contacted the company by the phone number on the check image. They were nice telling me that she will "receive a full refund in 21 days." Okay, I waited. I made another call when the 21 business days were up. They told me "she should have received the credit by now" but that they would "expedite it" and for me to call back in a week. I called again. Gee, the person couldn't understand why it had not been credited back as she was looking right at it. She said she would put in another request and to call back in 7 days. I believe I may have called one more time and that time I told them that I think this whole thing is a big fat scam. She rudely told me "everyone has their own opinion." I told her my opinion was that I was alerting the bank's fraud department and hopefully someone will get to the bottom of this elder abuse scam! She hung up. I must say, I had already contacted my mom's bank, and they told me I had 60 days to file a fraud claim. So I had a little time to deal with this so called "company" and to find this site and others confirming my belief that it was all a scam. Mom is on a limited income but made it fine. I just fear for the elderly who don't have someone's help with their finances and those who are truly living on a very fixed income. When my sister who lives in the same town as my mom went to the bank to file the fraud claim, the bank person told her that this sort of thing happens every single day. That is truly sad. I mean I've had bogus charges on my debit card. One time I even put a fraud alert on my credit file. It just really saddens me that scams like this are happening to our elderly parents or grandparents. Hope this one gets shut down soon. I, for one, will be diligently watching my mom's accounts.
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