I recently received a phone from number in Florida, I didn't notice that it was a Florida number at first on my caller i.D.
As soon as I answered the phone a woman spoke very polite at first and very fast. She told me her name was Whitney Barriner and her operator I. D number was 130. She told me she was a representative for travellifegodirect and gave me their website number. She told me I won $400 in travel vouchers from them simply from making a purchase from my checking account a few months back. She said I made a purchase with a affliated company.
But she couldn't give me the exact date of purchase, what I purchased or the so called affliated company's name. She said it was due to the privacy act, and something about customers would be upset if we told them we knew what they purchase. I was very suspicous but still very gullible. I told her how none of this made any sense, and she kept telling me to check out their website www.travellifegodirect.com
After she realized I was starting to get sucked in she asked me if my checking account was active, she indicated it would have to be an active account to receive the vouchers. She said she would need to verify my checking account and routing number with the information they had in their system. I start getting m brains back for a minute. Only a minute and said that doesn't make any sense.
Why do you need all that if your already calling me telling me I won? She said to verify my idenity. I didn't have the routing number right away, so she asked me what was the name of my bank. I didn't even catch it right away when she said she could just probaly get it off the bank's website. She asked me for the my checking account number again.
She then asked how many of my banks are in my local area? Obviously my brain was dead then! She then asked me what was my annual household income? Then she started to tell me about discounted offers that would come to me along with the vouchers. She said the travel discounts would range from 40% to 70% off. She said the discounts were completely optional, for 21 days. She said I would have to send a letter that I wanted to discontinue memmbership with travellifegodirect.
I can't remember what she said the membership fee would have been, but I remember she saying after 21 days the fee would go up 40% or more depending on my use of them.
She then said she would be putting me on hold, and switching to a secure line. It sounded like she just turned on a recorder. Within a couple of seconds she sounded all computer like, and start asking me so you do give travellifegodirect permission to send you $400 in travel vouchers and optional travel discounts for 14 days? Your checking account and routing number is? Your name is? You live at? Your membership number is& call this toll free number 1 877-777-2709.. But a florida number had came up on my caller i.D. I'm sorry I writing this late, the number got deleted.
She told me to call that number if I have any questions, or if my vouchers don't come within a week. Our phone conversation then ended, and I grew frantic realizing how what I just did was crazy believing this so called company. So I then went to the website again, but this time noticed that there was no phone numbers in the "contact us" section of the site that matched the number the "travellifegodirect rep" gave me. I then put travellifegodirect in yahoo search and it came up with numerous other sites with similar names, but when clicked on the sites looked exactly the same.
I then looked the travelifegodirect on the betterbusinessbureau website, and found them listed several times with the same and similar names, as non members, and with negative reports. I then called the number back the "rep" had given me earlier and got a woman who sounded exactly like the prior female, but with a nasty attitude, she told me her name was Denisha or something.
She kept cutting me off when I was trying to speak to tell her why I was calling. She asked me if I was calling to file a complaint on a rep I said yes, before i could say more she went it to telling me how long it would take to process. I snapped and asked her if travellifegodirect is a member of the better business bureau, she immediately said yes they were and have been for awhile.
I then told her how I looked the company up and found them under several diffrent names and that they are not a betterbusinessbureau member. She immediately said then, "well I don't know if we a member or not, but we a great company, and all we trying to do was give you some free travel vouchers."
I then told her how I was asked all those questions about my bank, and she put on some man that was supposed to be her supervisor. He said the same stuff she said. But he said I don't understand why we are not a member of the betterbusinessbureau, but we should be. I told he how I gave my account number and all that, and all I was trying to make sure was that travellifegodirect was not a scam. He then paused for a minute, and started laughing, then he said just relax and that he hopes I go somewhere fun on my travels. He then hung up the phone.
After that I looked up all the information I could on travellifegodirect and types of travel scams and scams in general. I found several reports on here regarding travellife and similar travel scams running around the nation. Please don't be a fool like me. Always go with your gut.
After all that I finally called my husband and got our accounts closed. I'm not worried about them still trying to send me some bogus bill, they'll have to be preapared to go to court. Scammers are never prepared for that. I'm just glad I didn't give them my social security or driver license number, or no other identifying info. Always remember you can never be too safe or too smart, but you die from being too stupid!
deltrice
norfolk, virginia
U.S.A.
0 comments