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I've Got Your Number, Buster! Make That Numbers--Five In All!! You're Toast, Sweetheart!!!Oct 18 '05 (Updated Oct 21 '05) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Beware of telemarketers bearing gifts and/or hot air. They just might have sticky fingers! But keep on reading, because I'm ending this post with very good news!
Dear Fellow Epinionators (and anyone else reading this)-- It's great to be here again! At one time, I was working on a piece that was gonna really tie things together, but I was working on various other things (including a book I'm hoping to have out before the end of the year--and the sooner the better) and, then, my computer wouldn't connect me to the Internet. Thanks to my "adopted" kid brother and computer guru (Mark, for those who don't know--and please keep him in your prayers, as he's undergoing surgery to have his gall-bladder removed this coming Thursday morning), I'm now up-and-running again. But the little incident that I'm about to share here happened, and I decided that this would be what I needed to write about first in order to warn anyone who might have the potential to get fooled and swindled (as was the case with me). First, let me say that what happened was absolutely NOT the fault of Target--this being just the company name that this weasel and his cronies used in order to carry out this little scam. Let me also say that the result that I'd been hoping to get--missing money replaced in my bank account that very day--didn't happen this way. My bank is going after these people (using the information I gave them), but there's no assurance that they'll be successful in getting a penny of the over $300 that has disappeared from my account back into my account (Make that my NEW account, as this little "inconvenience" has made it necessary for me to close my old one!), even though they're certainly going to try. Will keep you up with what happens using the comment section going with this piece, so--if you're interested in keeping up with this soap opera--set the option to receive notification when new comments have been added. No doubt, there will be an interesting discussion going on there, either way, because I'm inviting anyone who has been part of a scam to tell about it in the comment section--along with leaving URLs, if said person(s) has/have written something about the experience(s) elsewhere. Even if you haven't had anything like this to happen--and/or know someone who did--you're welcome to take part in the discussion. Anyway, you'll find below a copy of the account of this I wrote and gave to my bank to use as evidence--including a handwritten (originally--though it's, of course, all typewritten here) postscript where I added some things I'd forgotten to mention when I wrote the account. ************************* The account of events... This is report re: the account of: Ainsley Jo Phillips (bank account number deleted) in her own words written on October 3, 2005 A few weeks ago, I received a phone call from a man with a heavy, Middle-Eastern(?) accent who would, in the course of our conversation, identify himself as Chris and would, eventually, give me what he claimed to be his ID# in an attempt to make himself appear “legitimate.” This is the ID# he gave to me: #(number deleted) It wouldn’t be long afterwards that I would be thinking that this joker just might deserve some kind of ID# that looked a little like that! This is a reasonably-accurate description of our conversation: He told me that the big-box store, Target, was having a kind of customer appreciation campaign to celebrate some milestone in their years of business (an anniversary of something) and was sending me some shopping vouchers that would total, in value, to $500. He said that the vouchers had been put in the mail to me already. Something such as this seemed too good to be true—not that I thought that a reputable store such as Target was running some kind of scam, but I just assumed that there was a catch such as having to take out a membership in some kind of shopping club or something. So, I asked him what the catch was, and he told me that there was none—that I was just to pay them $4.95 as a processing charge on receipt of the package after I had started using the vouchers. He then asked me for my bank-account number—and that was when it occurred to me that this could be a scam that had absolutely nothing to do with Target (which it was, as it would turn out, exactly what it was—but, of course, I didn’t know this at the time). You see, I will give out credit card numbers and bank account numbers to places where I’ve been the one to place the call—but this man had called me, and, for all I knew, he could have been calling from a bar or something. And I was also a little bit ticked off by the idea that somebody had “already sent” something to my address that I’d never asked for and was going to charge me $4.95 for it—but, of course, it was reassuring to be told that this charge would never even occur unless I decided to use the vouchers (and it would certainly be worth paying under five dollars in order to claim $500 in merchandise—and the coupons could be shared and honored, just so long as the code was on them…more on the code in the next paragraph). There was just one more requirement in order to receive this gift package: I was to look over some information about three places hoping to gain my membership. One place was a place that supplemented a person’s health costs (not to be confused with an insurance company). Another place would provide me with lots of free movie passes (with complimentary popcorn, no less!) each month. The last place was an Internet service provider. The cost of membership in any of these was just a little too steep for me. If I had been interested in anything, it would have been the first one. The second one sounded nice—but something I could definitely do without. The third one was one I had absolutely no need for, as I get perfectly-good Internet service through the local cable company (Insight Communications) and, on top of that, have a piggy-back ISP via AOL. So, I told Chris that I knew right now that I wouldn’t be interested in any of the three, so why not simply decline while we were on the phone together. He told me that the rules were that I had to wait until the information arrived from each party and, then, use their toll-free numbers to call them back and cancel. He reassured me that the entire experience would only cost me $4.95 unless I actually did take advantage of the offers. But, as I said before, I had no proof that he was with Target and, for all I knew, could have placed this call while sitting on the john in his own home (which he probably does a lot of, as he has definitely turned out to be full of it!). He seemed rather hurt that I wasn’t just biting like a dog after a bone, but that was just too bad. I told him that there were so many scams going around that I had to make sure that this was actually a campaign that was going on at Target. Therefore, I would be doing a three-way call with the other party being the local location of Target (Applewood Centre just off of Scatterfield Road in Anderson). I don’t know how this Chris character did it, but he must have had a way to intercept my call so that, instead of going to Target, it went to a bogus place. The “clerk” who assured me that Target was definitely having this campaign also spoke with an accent very similar to that of Chris. I thought it was an interesting coincidence, but I just assumed that the local Target just happened to have an immigrant on its payroll—that the company probably went out of its way to help people coming to our country to get off to a good start. A week or so after that, I would be talking to the manager—who would tell me that the only accent among the employees there at that time was one person with a Southern accent. So, I don’t know how Chris did it, but he had definitely managed to make a phone call that I’d placed travel elsewhere! Although I use a post office box for most of my correspondence: (address deleted) anything set up through this company would be arriving at my home address of: (address deleted) Also, I generally use my voicemail for getting in touch with me—which is the number I have listed at my bank and other places: (voicemail number deleted) However, these dealings were done over my home phone: (home phone number deleted) so my home address and phone number would be the ones where they have records in case anyone inquires. These are the numbers of the companies (not sure offhand which one is which without calling them). The movie one said that it would send a check back to me… Let me back up here and tell you what happened next, because I’m getting ahead of myself: I waited for the different things to arrive in the mail after being told that it would take about five business days. Meanwhile, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, and I thought that one good place to use some of those vouchers would be to help out in that disaster. Of course, they hadn’t arrived yet. I think it must have been a week after Katrina hit that the movie club information arrived—and I think that it was at least a week before the hurricane that I’d gotten this call in the first place. So, I was beginning to wonder where everything was. As I’d been instructed, I called the movie company to let them know that I wasn’t interested, and I was told that my membership was now canceled and that I wouldn’t be owning anything else. When I asked what I’d owed in the first place, I was told $119 and some change. I told the lady I was talking to that I’d never joined the club and was just looking over the membership material as part of a campaign—and, therefore, I wanted a full refund! She told me that she was sorry but that I had, indeed, ordered the membership and that my conversation doing so had been taped. I told her that I had participated in a taped conversation but had, at no time whatsoever, agreed to pay for even a portion of a membership—that I wasn’t rolling in money and didn’t need this happening to my bank account, so she’d just better get my money back to me! So, she finally agreed on sending me a check. “When?” I was told to expect the check in four-to-six weeks. I told her that I didn’t want to wait that long and that I wanted the money NOW—to which she told me that four to six weeks was the best that she could do. At that point, I think I said something along the lines of, “We’ll see about that!” and told her that I was placing a call to the local Target to get their take on this. With her on the line with me, both a clerk and the manager there told me that there had never been any sort of campaign like this going on. Nothing else came in the mail—no vouchers and no membership material. Yet, money has continued to be withdrawn from my account. The “single” processing charge of $4.95!?! The last time I looked, there were at least two—if not THREE such withdrawals from my bank! But—while this was unethical and even the taking out of this tiny amount needed to come to a halt—this isn’t the kind of withdrawal that has me up-in-arms: It’s those three-figured amounts! Thankfully, my bank is going to reimburse me and go after the ones responsible and take it out of their hides. Oh yes! That Internet service that I needed about as much as a cat needs a hot-tub…It has responded by saying that it can cancel my membership but that what I’d already paid ($102 plus change) belongs to them. I told the woman who took my call that we’d just see about that! Let me add that I was making these calls with a very nice, helpful, and efficient bank employee named Michelle (whose main headquarters are out at the 53rd Street branch of my bank). This is what happened with us this time… One number we called was one where we kept getting some silly message about typing in a code. The other two numbers reached real people. Here are the three numbers of the companies—I find it to be a little strange that only the last four digits of each number are unique: (three phone numbers deleted) On an earlier visit to the bank, I was waited on by another very nice lady. Unfortunately, I can’t remember her name—but I do remember that she shared her own experience of suddenly being signed up for an expensive cruise that she never consciously ordered. She was able to check around and found out that these withdrawals were all being made by the same processing company whose number is: (phone number deleted) Hopefully, this is enough to go on for these people to be smoked out of their hiding places and brought to justice! Kudos to Star Financial Bank, because they’ve been very helpful in this matter and will be returning the amounts of money to my bank account at their own expense while hoping that they can take it out of the hide of the scammers! Couldn’t ask for anything better than that! My advice: If anyone named Chris calls you and tells you that Target has picked you to be some kind of celebration guest-of-honor—hang up the phone quickly (but not before blowing a whistle, activating a smoke alarm, blasting the horn of an 18-wheeler, or whatever else you can think of right into the mouthpiece so that you’ll become unforgettable to this hokey character)!!! Ainsley Jo Phillips (address and phone number deleted) Postscript to this account... P.S. I'd meant to also add that I suspect that the tape I was speaking on had the questions doctored so I would be answering "Yes" to questions that would have gotten a "No" from me. I also forgot to mention the code--this would be a bunch of numbers I would be given a few days later...numbers to be used to validate vouchers. Saw neither them nor the vouchers! ************************* Other than the above, things seem to be going well for me, and you'll be hearing more from me in the time to come. If you live in the New York City area (or plan to visit there) and are in the mood to attend a play, you might want to check out In The Air, which was written by longtime friend, Paul Enger. This is a play about the Great Flu Epidemic of 1918 with its three main characters being two sisters and a pioneering aviator and the setting being Paul's home state of North Dakota. Originally, it was to have been presented between October 6 and November 27, but there were some delays, so its opening night was on October 15, and it will go (unless it gets shut down or some sort of unforeseeable circumstance changes things) until December 3. This will take place at Theatre 315, which is located at (Duh!?!) 315 West 47th Street in NYC. You can find out more information by going to www.StageplaysTheatre.com and tickets are available at: SMARTTIX -- (212) 868-4444 or www.smarttix.com Paul gave me the time schedule: The play is put on nightly at 8 p.m. Tuesday thru Saturday. There are 2:30 p.m. matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays--plus a matinee the Friday following Thanksgiving. Here's an exciting note-of-interest that goes well with this play: If you can get a copy of the October 17 issue of TIME Magazine, check out the essay on the last page: Lessons from the 1918 Flu by John M. Barry I find it interesting that this happened to get published right on time to "go with" the debut of Paul's play, and I told Paul that this seemed like a good sign to me! Tonight--and during some of the other performances this week--some of the critics from well-known newspapers will be in the audience, so Paul, obviously, has at least a few butterflies in his stomach. Hopefully, his play (and he, too!) will be seen as a hit!!! I have a lot more that I could be sharing now, but I'm going to close here so I can get this posted! TTFN! AJ :o)  |
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