I received a phone call from 1-727-683-1119 from a man working with travel agents direct to offer me free airline vouchers and free hotel vouchers. When I asked how he got my name and phone number, he just replied that I had used my account recently to buy a product that entered me in a promotional drawing.
In order to recieve my promotional vouchers, I would need to validate my account number. I pretended not to know my number and hung up. The next day, I received another phone call from the same number but from a woman this time.
When I asked her why she needed my number, she said that it was to verify that my account was open. She said that her company used a system called Veritrack (which she claimed supermarkets used) to verify if my account was open. She sounded very legit and like an idiot, I gave her my account number. Then she started to read what seemed like 10 minutes of fine print and I was told that in order to receive the promotional products, I had to sign up for Prism phone card and the Floridaway vacation package - both of which I can cancel before two weeks.
I specifically asked her if my account would be charged and she said "No. Not unless you don't deactivate your packages." I felt uneasy about my decision to tell her my account info, so a few days later, I decided to google the companies and I came across dozons of complaints against suntasia.
I did a little more research into pretext calling and phone phishing. After I realized that I had been potentially scammed, I immediately called the number back and said I wanted to cancel everything. I was then transferred to the customer service line 800-853-9982 where I was that I could cancel the Travel Agents Direct there, but I would have to cancel the other two packages by calling other numbers.
So I called the first number for Floridaway 866-522-4990, where I used the automated option to cancel my package. I then recalled to try to talk to an operator. I had to call 4 times before an actual operator would talk to me, all the other times I was put on hold for over 5 minutes each time.
Then I called the Prism number, 888-694-9151 and I had to go through the same process. I then called the 800-853-9982 number again where I was put through to the operator after two calls. She was extremely agitated and immediately told me that all my packages were cancelled. When I asked if there were any charges made, she said no. I knew that the whole thing with me having to call the different numbers was b*ll because all the numbers had the exact same automated option setup and the same music when you were put on hold.
Also, I knew that the customer service operator could deal with all the package cancellations, because the last time I called, she could see the status of all the package accounts. I will be monitoring my account closely to make sure no withdrawals have occurred. I think the reason I even got through on any of the numbers, was because I was so annoyingly persistent and because I called so often.
In all, it took me about two hours to get everything settled. Hope this is the last I will hear from Suntasia.
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