I dealt with Uniway back in 2005. I thought it was ancient history and until I was going over my credit report and founf that the only real negitive activity I had on it was from this company. Pretty much what took place was we recieved a key in the mail. I was curious, so I called the number on it and wasn't very interested when I spoke with the person on the phone. These people called me back every day at least twice a day until I finally decided to come in and here their sales pitch and see if I "Won a new car", yeah right.
We walked the show room, and I was ready to leave. I wasn't really impressed by anything that the scammers had to say. My wife and I started to leave after the walk through, and we were approached bu 2 salesmen. They asked us why we were leaving and I told them that we weren't interested. They asked us to step into a side office and speak with them, they said it was just to see if they could change our minds. We went into the office and figured we would listen to a 5 minute spill and still turn them down. We spent 2 hours in this little office with one guy standing against the door and one setting at the little desk telling us why we were going to buy into their company.
At first it was questions as to what we thought would make the company more desirable to us. Then it was that we shouldn't have come in and waisted the salesmens time if we weren't going to buy into the program. It reminded me of dealing with an extremely bi-polar individual. One minute they were trying to talk us into joining the next they were trying to threaten us into it it seemed. After the second hour was up, the guy told me that if we didn't like the program we had thirty days to cancel. All he needed was a check from me and my signature on a couple of papers. I thought, "ok, I just wanna get out of here go straight home and cancel." Then I got a better idea. I told the guy that I had a check book with me, but I had brought the wrong one. The checks were no good because I had changed accounts. This was semi true, because I had just changed accounts and got new checks due to a banking issue, but I did have the good checks and not the old ones with me.
The guy told me that I could just write him a bad check and that it was just a holder, it would never see the bank. It was just for "Identification purposes". After more intensive grilling I finally said ok, I wrote the check signed the papers and went home. My bank and the post office were closed when we finally got out of the place. We had went in at like 10 in the morning and got out after 5. So I got up the next morning and called about cancelling my membership. I started by calling uniway. I was told that I had three days from the day before. They said that I had to send a certified letter that they had to recieve within those three days. The guy asked if we had gotten the free internet stuff, and at that point I hadn't even looked at it so I said no and was honest in my comment. (The "free" internet stuff was as big of a scam as the rest of the company. The had products that you "pay the shipping" on. The thing is that these were very common items sold at Wal-Mart, and the shiping in most cases was more than the price at Wal-Mart, even double in some cases for small items that you or I could ship for no more than a couple of bucks even today.
I jumped into action and sent an overnight certified membership cancelation letter, stopped the payment on the check, and called and spoke with Uniway again to tell them what I had done. The guy pretty much threw a fit on the phone but it was the last I heard of it. That is until March of this year when I checked and my credit report and there it was on my credit report as a collection that I had never heard anything about.
This company is a scam as far as I am concerned, and I have talked to many others with very simular stories. The report should fall off around october on my credit report so I am not worried to much about it, but if there were ever a class action against this place I would most definitly testify about the bullying sales tactics, the lies, the scams to get a person to buy, and the fact that these people tried to get me to write a bad check that I wouldn't have written if I wouldn't have just wanted to get my wife and myself out of the sittuation. I don't know if this is something that is just in Greenville SC or if it is a problem at all of their locations, but from what I read, mine was not an issolated incident. I was mad when I saw this on my credit report, but honestly now it doesn't bother me anymore. If I got nothing else from this experience, I did learn to be weary of any company that sends you a key in the mail, as well as to just go home instead of being talked into going into an office to talk about things when you don't want to buy the survices. We had friends with us who slipped out right before us, I still wish that I had of followed their lead. At least when they came back in provided us with some wonderful and reputable witnesses in case I would have ever needed them.
I would recommend that anyone who recieves a letter from this company, throw it away. If they call you, hang up quickly.
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