frequent phone calls
Complaint
barb
Country: United States
nearly daily calls from this company... a real pain in the neck.. how do I block them.?.. I have told them that I am reporting them , even spoke to supervisor, or so he said he was.. said he'd remove my number...but DID NOT.
Comments
This last one told me she can call me "Because I can, and you don't have to answer your phone like a dumbass."
Checked here, found number, called.
Off the list.
And I hope the little sh*t that got lippy gets sacked.
Foreman aka Paws
1) You are NOT getting calls from Cardmember services. You are getting calls from a large-scale spam operation that is claiming to be Cardmember services. Calling the real CMS will NOT help because they are not the ones calling.
2) DO NOT PRESS 0 or 3 or 9 or whatever button they tell you to press to speak with a person. The only thing you will accomplish is to MAKE THE CALLS WORSE, because it will alert them that they are calling an active number with a human at the other end of the line.
3) Do not ask them to take you off their list, that will also make the calls worse. This is a fun game to these people, and they enjoy putting the aggrivated people who ask not to be called on a separate "call more often" list.
4) The do-not-call list DOES NOT MATTER TO THEM because they are not a legitimate business, they are a scam, and the penalties that are assessed to legitimate companies for violating the do-not-call list do not apply to them. One number is shut down, and they register another. The federal and state DNC lists cannot stop them.
The best thing you can do is to simply NOT ANSWER your phone. Their system is automated and it will eventually conclude that your number is inactive because they never get an answer from it. Just stop answering all calls from unknown numbers (a policy that everyone should have anyway ... an unknown number is usually spam ... if you're worried it's a relative or an emergency they will leave a voicemail) and your number will eventually phase out of their system.
If this is not CMS they need to take action and pursuer the people infringing on their name.
I am somewhat skeptical of their claim they are not calling. If this were the case with as long as the calls have been occurring they would have changed their name. Much cheaper than the fines.
I will file with the FCC
This is a link to their website:
http://www.ambrosiawebdesign.com/
This is their contact information:
Ambrosia Website Design LLC
2906 S Revere Circle
Mesa, AZ 85210
(888) 583-1956
I have called them repeatedly and was finally able to get someone to answer the phone and he admitted that they are Card Member Services, and once I threatened to report them, he promised to stop the calls.
Also, the outfit is spoofing the numbers that appear on our caller IDs, so these numbers are not legitimate ones, and that 's what makes the calls untraceable. One clue is that toll-free numbers should NEVER appear on your caller ID, only the actual number the person is calling from - unless their phone system has spoofing software installed.
Another thought: when I first started getting these calls, the operators sounded like they were from the Philippines, or a similar place with very good English skills.. Now the operators sound like they are actually from the US, an urban area, but not in the South.
I started to notice when getting the calls the person I get connected to usually sounds like 1 of 2 distinct voices. They called yesterday and today, both were "Mary." Yesterday Mary hung up on me when I asked to be removed from their calling list. Today, I decided to play along.
The questions were what my interests rates were, what my credit limits were, how many cards do I have, how many were close to their limit, what state do I live in, etc. I didn't give any true information and said "Oh no, I've got $10,000 in debt but I'm no where near my limits." Excitedly Mary said, "That's great! Verification will not effect your credit score, this is not debt consolidation, we do not work with the credit card companies, and we will simply just be reducing your rate to 6%. If we were debt consolidation it would be reported to your credit score. It will take 90 seconds to verify your eligibility." I responded, "Ok, so I just give you my credit card number?" Mary said, "Well not if you don't want to." I asked "If I don't, how does it get verified?" She said, "Well you can only get verified by giving the card number." So I calmly said "Ok, thanks. I just wanted to make sure I had this conversation recorded so I can give it to my lawyer." Mary then goes from very pleasant to very snarky saying, "Save your money, you can't record me because you didn't ask permission first. Next time play with someone else," followed by a dial tone.
1. How could the interest rate be reduced if they don't work with the credit card companies? I mean c'mon, that makes no sense.
2. I don't have to ask permission to record someone committing a crime and attempting to steal my identity. This is not calling a company's customer service line for help where they inform you it may be recorded.
3. These people call from all sorts of different numbers because their lines get shut down so they route it through a new number.
4. The reason they say $5,000 and ask if you're close to your debt limits is because they want to gauge how much they can get off of each card and in their total haul. Hence why Mary was so happy to think I had 10k in debt over 5 cards and nowhere near my limits. She's probably guesstimating I've got a 50k+ credit limit.
5. Thinking about all this over the past year leaves me with this: My best guess is the "90 second verification process" is them running your card by making some sort of small purchase or cash advance to verify the card is real, they have your billing zip / 3 digit code correct and it isn't maxed out. Afterwards they probably max it out as quickly as possible buying things or taking cash out on it (printing their own cards with all the info) and hope you haven't checked your card statement online. Or they keep doing small purchases over time hoping to fly under the radar. (I have no idea if this is what happens, but it's just what I've concluded.)
I check my credit card activity on a regular basis, I have my credit score monitored through myfico.com and anytime an inquiry is made with my information I receive an email alert. I love it because if I open an account or request credit I know I'll get a notification of that. If I haven't done those things but get an alert I can get a jump start on figuring out a problem. Check it out. Highly recommend "Score Watch" to everyone to protect your financial records.
Hopefully the law can get a handle on the situation so people don't have their identity stolen and their credit maxed out. Warn everyone you know. In desperate times people can ignore their gut instinct because they want so badly for something that sounds good to be true.
I'm also seriously considering the air horn idea after reading some of the comments here.