The following is a letter I wrote to my 20-year-old unemployed daughter's bank regarding Premier Benefits ripping off of her bank account. Because of them, she currently owes the bank almost $400 in overdraft fees and monies they paid out on her behalf (they have an overdraft protection feature on their accounts)...
Thank you so much for notifying (my daughter) of her account overdraft status. She was away from home when her bank statement came in, and so she was unaware of quite how her problems with Premier Benefits and their fraudulent business practices had escalated.
I just got off the phone with several different representatives of this company and they all maintain the legality of their program and refuse to refund any of the money charged against her account. However, on the day of the initial telemarketer phone call, she was not allowed to cancel the program when she realized that they would be drafting her account for more than $3.95.
She didn't find out the full amount until AFTER they had gotten her account information. Highly unethical and illegal all the way around, as I believe there's a federal law designed to provide a cooling off period of at least 48 hours after a sale. Certainly a refusal to allow someone to cancel a contract before the original call ends sounds dubious in the extreme.
I talked with three different people today. One was Jesse Olsen, employee #7931, who I contacted using the 1-800-357-7592 number listed on the check #321783 for Buyers Union. Another was Jenny Miller, employee #7917 (notice how similar the employee numbers are?), who answered both the Call One Communications line at 1-800-357-8873 and the Premier Movie Pass line at 1-800-357-9145.
During my first call to Jenny I was able to get her to connect me to her immediate supervisor, Amanda Ross, employee #0609, who also refused to refund these monies and who refused to disclose the name of the company's owner or owners so that I could name them in a small claims court lawsuit.
During my second conversation with Jenny Miller on the Premier Movie Pass line, she finally admitted that the overall business name - the name of the business who issues her paychecks is Premier Benefits and that they're all located under the same roof.
I don't know quite what your bank can do regarding retrieving the money you paid out so that (her) good name and credit information isn't compromised, but anything you can do or suggest we do would be most appreciated. The important thing that (she) wants you to understand is that she did not willingly or knowingly perpetrate a fraud against either the Home Trust Bank or Premier Benefits.
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