Stop montly withdrawal from my bank acc
Complaint
Mohammed Saad
Country: United States
I have received a monthly charge on my Bank of America account for $40 dated Feb09. I did receive a phone call claimed to be from Bank of America some time ago to try a certain insurance for a trial period. to be followed by more details.Nothing was received until I got a charge of $40 off my acc. I wrote to B of A who did not seem to know who the "merchant" was. I want to CANCELL this montly charge effective immediatly and the $40 charged to my acc reversed.
Thanks
Mohammed
Thanks
Mohammed
Comments
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2009/11/what-if-ther ... tch-behind.html
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?F ... th=11&Year=2009
http://dockets.justia.com/docket/court-candce ... case_id-224329/
"Chavez v. Bank of America Corporation et al
Plaintiff: Steven M. Chavez
Defendants: Bank of America Corporation, Intersections Inc. and FIA Card Services, National Association
Case Number: 3:2010cv00653
Filed: February 16, 2010
Court: California Northern District Court
Office: San Francisco Office
County: Sonoma
Presiding Judge: Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero
..."
"Bank of America Sued over Unsolicited “Privacy Assist” Monthly Charges
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Customers of Bank of America are claiming the bank charges $8.99 a month for identity-theft protection and credit monitoring without authorization. Lead plaintiff Steven Chavez says in his class action lawsuit that BofA hit him with monthly costs for “Privacy Assist” without asking him first, and when he complained, the bank denied any affiliation with the services for credit monitoring and free access to online credit reports. But Chavez insists Privacy Assist is owned by BofA. Other plaintiffs say they have endured bank overdrafts as a result of Privacy Assist charges being applied to their accounts.
..."
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/18/24797.htm
"Thursday, February 18, 2010Last Update: 7:16 AM PT 'Privacy Assist' My Eye, Class Tells BofA
By MARIA DINZEO
ShareThis
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - Bank of America takes money from customers' accounts to pay for services they didn't order and don't want, a class action claims in Federal Court. The class claims the bank charges for "Privacy Assist" services without informing them, and refuses to refund the money when customers catch on.
The class claims Bank of America has been withdrawing $8.99 from their accounts every month for "Privacy Assist," which includes credit monitoring and free access to online credit reports.
Privacy Assist Premier offers identity theft insurance for $12.99 a month, and Privacy Assist Complete includes anti-virus software for $18.99.
Some plaintiffs say they have overdrawn on their bank accounts because of these automatic withdrawals, also known as "electronic funds transfers."
Lead plaintiff Steven Chavez says he was charged for several months of Privacy Assist before he noticed the withdrawals from his account in September 2009, when he became suspicious of a $17.99 charge on his bank statement labeled "Privacy Assist."
When he complained to Bank of America, it denied affiliation with Privacy Assist, Chavez says, though the complaint identifies Privacy Assist as a "wholly owned subsidiary of Bank of America."
Chavez says he contacted Privacy Assist directly, but was refused a refund.
Chavez says he was never provided with any anti-virus software from Privacy Assist, and before he saw the charges on his bank statement, he had never even heard of Privacy Assist.
He said he asked the bank to cancel the service but Bank of America and Privacy Assist are still taking his money, and have "drained his bank account and even caused him to incur several overdraft fees from Bank of America."
The class seeks the return of all money withdrawn from their accounts and damages for unfair business practices, unjust enrichment, conversion and violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act. It is represented by Kevin Ruf with Glancy, Binkow and Goldberg of Los Angeles.
..."
Complaint:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/18/BofAPrivacy.pdf
Also note that California is an "opt-out default" state with respect to GLB permission to disclose bank information to third parties.
If you have been contacted by this number, you better check your bank account. If you are a Bank of America customer, contact the bank IMMEDIATELY!!!
I share the same story with most here, and this is what I suggest you do if you are or have been charged with a fee payable to Customer Years (the actual name of the company is Coverdell) out of your Bank of America account.
HOW THE SCAM WORKS
Bank of America offers your contact information to companies like Coverdell (Customer Years) so that they can provide you with services, such as life insurance policies, that you may be interested or benefit from. Of course, Bank of America receives a share of the profits for sharing this information with these companies. You can prevent Bank of America from sharing your information with other companies by contacting the bank and "opting out."
Once Coverdell (Customer Years) has your information, they will use yet another company to actually contact you regarding the services offered. This third party company, called GCS, is a telemarketing company. The only contact GCS make with you is, not surprisingly, through a phone call. Neither GCS, Coverdell (Customer Years) or Bank of America have any written confirmation of your agreement to take up the services. The only agreement is a verbal confirmation that you allegedly gave over the phone. Therefore, you should be particularly skeptical if you have been contacted by this number at all!!
WHAT TO DO
1. Contact Bank of America's customer service (1.800.432.1000) and request cancellation of the automatic payment to Coverdell (Customer Years).
2. Ask to be transferred to the claims department (there's no direct number) and file a fraud claim with Bank of America regarding the unauthorized transaction(s). If you use online banking, you should be able to see how often you have been robbed from your money; otherwise, ask the agent to run a history check to see how many times there was a transaction involving Coverdell (Customer Years).
3. Contact Coverdell's (Customer Years) customer service (1.866.237.8236) and ask to speak with Supervisor Jay Johnson, extension #4260. It is crucial that you take this final step, because there is no signed agreement, the point of this call is to request for Coverdell (Customer Years) to provide you with the recording of your verbal agreement. They will honor your request and contact you back within a few days and play back the recording containing your agreement. At this time, you should also ask to cancel your policy, whatever it may be, with them.
ADDITIONALLY
As I said before, Bank of America is not liable; however, it is unfair that the bank actually endorses this type of deceptive business practice and even gets a share from doing so. Therefore, you should file a complaint with the bank regarding this issue. Unfortunately, your calls requesting the stop payment and the fraud claim will do nothing to prevent this from happening to other innocent people. So you should keep this in mind and take some time to actually file a dissatisfaction complaint regarding this practice and the bank's association with Coverdell (Customer Years).
This will be a bit more time consuming because you will have to explain to the agent your entire story... and you SHOULD tell him/her EVERYTHING!
When you initially call, the agent will tell you he/she does not know what you are talking about. Do NOT give up. Tell your story!!! Bank of America uses a system called Flagscape. Ask the agent to look up Coverdell (Customer Years) under Flagscape. The agent will freak when you mention Flagscape because general customers do not know about it. Flagscape is the system that houses all of the companies that Bank of America associates with, so the agent will be able to find Coverdell's (Customer Years) information and properly file your complaint.
THANK YOU
I hope this information is helpful and I also hope you take time to help make things better for yourself and others. You may think that $29.95 is not worth complaining about, but when you multiply that number by the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who are being scammed, the issue becomes a great cause to fight for.
FTC places stringent requirements on such telemarketers, including that they record the entire call, specifically including the consumer's disclosing the last 4 digits of their account number AFTER the sales pitch, yet fraudulent telemarketers may play on consumers' (and even bank employees') lack of knowledge of those TSR requirements to attempt to con the consumer or the bank into withdrawing a dispute of fraudulent charges.
What FTC missed in implementing the preacquired information TSR requirements was that there is no verifiable way to verify the supposedly "verifiable authorization" recordings if the verification system itself has been compromised. This has allowed fabrication through as simple a tactic as calling an associate instead of the consumer, or editing the recording after the fact, should the consumer challenge the charges and request the tape.
Even this can be handled in most cases by just stalling, since most consumers will give up if the dispute process is drawn out long enough. At worst, a fraudulent telemarketer can then just claim there was a technical problem, or they couldn't find the tape, leaving no penalty for an outright attempt at fraud.
Editing a consumer's response into an entirely different script is not technically difficult, especially with common computer editing tools. This tactic has been common with business directory scams for many years. Sloppy editing can be covered up by adding noise, which many people will assume was just normal problems with the line.
Editing can be done even when the consumer's words are mixed with and overlap a benign sales pitch, perhaps offering to send "information" rather than actually sign up the alleged customer. This is because phone signals between callers are actually separable into the two distinct signals from each end, by what is known in the telecom industry as a "hybrid", essentially similar to the nulling circuit normally present in any phone to allow the level of local sound signal heard by a caller to be set separately from the level of the arriving sound signal coming from a distance. As normally used, although both signals may be at similar levels on the wire, the local level delivered to the earphone from the local microphone is reduced by cancellation, which also reduces the possibility of feedback.
Phone recordings are no more reliable than the persons making and controlling them.
https://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/q_wV ... jxwBVxwjM82fq8Q
https://complaintwire.org/Complaint.aspx/R-mKfej92gBLOQjKavSKZA
Note that many complaints include allegations of deceptively obtained "authorizations", based only on consumers "agreeing" to receive "information" or "docs".
One complaint reports they were told they could review the policy and would have to sign and return it to activate it, but they decided not to sign up and did not return anything.
"I was not really interested in, so this person ask a couple of simple questions about age and also my spouse's age ( that's all!!!) and I told him and we agreeded on her sending me this example of the policy and I would go through it and give them my reply (if) I agreed on it, which I didn't. also it would have to be signed (if) I took the policy which also was not signed and not accepted. "
Another reports that they were told later by Bank of America that no signature was needed to activate it. Note how BofA merely claims to have a recording, doesn't even produce it, and that is enough to convince the skeptical consumer.
"Bank of America or the insurance company (I can't remember which) was supposed to send a package showing you you policy and during the grace period you can cancel your policy. There was nothing to sign. That's what the company told me, and Bank of America records the call so I guess you can't do anything about it. "
"
Many complaints report that they have no idea how Level AD obtained their account number, which indicates that telemarketers are not disclosing that they already have consumer account information on their Bank of America account.
"The crazy part of this matter is how did they achieve my bank acct.# and routing # when this was not discussed, which only tell's that this is some sort of hacking no doubt in play!!"
These complaints also indicate that the calls do not comply with FTC's preacquired account TSR rules, which require not only that the whole call be recorded, including all terms, but that the consumer be recorded specifically providing the last 4 digits of the account number as "verifiable authorization", or that "verifiable authorization" be obtained by other means, such as by sending back a signed application.
http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/level-ad-insurance-des8-c332211.html
Cumulatively, these recent complaints document a pattern of carefully crafted fraudulent telemarketing in violation of the FTC Telemarketing Sales Rule, and also show evidence of assistance by BofA in pulling it off.
Note that the alleged "authorizations" described fail to meet FTC's "verifiable authorization" TSR requirement for preacquired account information telemarketing. Deceptive tactics are similar to those reported in complaints against SmartStep and Level AD.
Discover earned $300 million in revenue from these "products" in 2009.
http://www.ag.state.mn.us/Consumer/PressRelease/120610DiscoverBank.asp
"Press Release
December 6, 2010
ATTORNEY GENERAL LORI SWANSON FILES SUIT AGAINST DISCOVER BANK
Lawsuit Alleges That Credit Card Company Deceptively Charged Customers For Pricey Financial Products Marketed As A Way For People To Protect Themselves From Fraudulent Charges and Financial Instability
Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson today filed a lawsuit against Discover Bank for deceptively charging some credit card customers for pricey optional financial products that the company markets as a way for people to protect themselves from fraudulent or unauthorized charges and to enhance their financial security in the bad economy. Discover, one of the nation’s largest credit card companies, claims to be in one out of four households with 54 million credit cards in circulation.
“The company charged some consumers for expensive add-on financial products without their understanding that their credit cards would be charged. The irony is that the credit card company markets these products as a way for consumers to protect themselves from fraudulent or unauthorized credit card charges and financial instability in the bad economy,” said Attorney General Swanson.
Nationwide, in 2009 Discover earned nearly $300 million in annual revenue from the sale of these optional financial products, an increase of over $80 million, or over 37 percent, from 2007. This is in addition to the revenue the bank charges customers for interest and penalty fees (e.g. late fees, over-the-limit fees, etc.) In 2009, Discover reported net income of $1.3 billion.
The lawsuit alleges that Discover Bank and its affiliated processing company made aggressive, misleading, and deceptive telemarketing calls to sign people up for these products. The company first lures the consumer into believing the call is a courtesy call from their credit card company and not a sales call—that is, that the caller is simply touching base to make sure the customer is aware of all the benefits of the card. In some cases, the company has charged people’s credit cards for enrollment in these add-on products even though the consumer did not agree to purchase anything. In other cases, the company tricks people into unknowingly signing up for these products, usually by inducing consumers to say “ok” or “yes” to a benign statement without understanding they are signing up and then treating that response as authorization to bill their credit cards. In many cases, Discover refuses to make refunds to aggrieved consumers.
A typical telemarketer generally cannot sign up a customer for a product or service unless the customer gives out their credit card number or other form of payment. Unlike a typical telemarketer, Discover is the consumer’s credit card company and already has their credit card number. This enables the company to charge consumers for extra financial products by making deceptive telemarketing calls in which some consumers did not give knowing consent to purchase the paid products.
As noted above, some consumers were tricked into unwittingly signing up by giving an affirmative response like “ok” or “yes” to a seemingly benign statement or question even though the consumer has no actual understanding that they are supposedly agreeing to purchase a paid product to be billed to their credit card. For example, in some cases telemarketers read the consumer a purported “disclosure” in which they butcher or alter the text, leave out key words, run sentences together, pause when there is no period, or speed read the text, all to make it incomprehensible to the consumer. In other cases, telemarketers leave out key terms like the fact the consumer is purchasing something or the price, and instead emphasize portions of the script that do not suggest a sale is taking place, like the company’s customer service number. In other cases, the company leads customers to believe they are simply authorizing the company to send them materials in the mail to look over, with no agreement to purchase a product or have their credit card billed.
..."
"He was very pleasant, cancelled my account, and gave me a confirmation number and his name."
Or so he said. Or so you say. Confirmation numbers do nothing to prevent continuing charges, as they prove nothing, and it's probably an alias anyway.
"Of course he had to read through his script first. I don't see why this bothers people. "
Maybe because many people never agreed to these charges in the first place? Taking their money makes most people mad. Having to deal with fraudulent charges wastes both their money and their time, but maybe your time has no value.
"It's a job and he won't get credit for a contact unless he has read the entire script: a few minutes of your time isn't too much to give a person working at a crummy job like telephone solicitation! "
Why would anyone want to support an "industry" that investigations and Senate hearings have found responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in consumer losses?
"Just politely decline at the end of each pitch."
Then you get to run the fraudulent telemarketing "script gauntlet" as your adversary tries to weave a carefully written deceptive pitch toward getting you to "agree" to something as innocuous as "reviewing an information packet" which will be enough for them to claim you "agreed" to more charges.
The credit he wants is for making a "sale", or at least something that looks like one. They already have your account information, so the only cover they need for fraudulent charges is plausible deniability. Just call it a "mistake" when caught.
New York Attorney General settlement with Trilegiant and Web Loyalty.
http://www.ag.ny.gov/bureaus/consumer_frauds/affinion.html
VISA ban on "data passing".
http://redtape.msnbc.com/2010/05/notorious-credit-card-tactic-banned.html
Every single word supports the impression you are trying to make, as supposedly a "consumer cancelling your account". You didn't waste even one.
You have a great future in advertising, or maybe in coaching telemarketers. What did you study, Psychology and NLP?
I had found myself having monthly bills decucted from my account. I had to struggle for several months trying tofind out why the unauthorized deductions had been allowed by Wells Fargo? I beleive that they reimbursed part of the money but I beleive I was not returned about $800.00. I was too sick to follow up and maintain my focus. I ssemed to have been forced to put it off by my health and mental ability.
Just recently I became aware of another similara decuvtion going on for long distance calling. In essence I was told by Wells Fargo that it was my fault for having provided Tele Circuit with my acoount , so that USBI was collecting from Qwest, who were collecting from my auto payment. I asked Wells Fargo to stop any auto payments and was told that I had ti contact the company myself because they couldn't do it without charging a fee of $35.00.
Which they did anyway when Qwest collected for USBI collecting for Tele Circuit. I'm on a very limited income of SSI which makes it rediculous for my knowingly having accepted to pay a bill four times larger than the one I had, whichwas a minimal service that I could afford with governmental aid I receive.
I received a promise of a paaartial reimbursement from Tele Circuit which is supposed to pay for my following months of service. I have yet to see if they will keep their promise. So Wells Fargo just colected $35.00 for my overdraft, as well as more money for the money which I had to borrow to be able to take care of my wazter bill. It seems that they will get around $70.00 total.
I spent an enormous amount of time calling and trying to find out what were the previous dections for, and who had permitted them. It seemed that Wells Fargo was related to AIG and had provided them with my information and allowed unauthorized deductions several years ago and had done it again. When I informed them that unauthorized decuctions were being made both they and then the phone company claimed to be unable to stop the payments and that I had to contact the company myself, which allowed time for the overdraft to be made. It seems that I have been robbed of at least $800.00 and more recently of something close to $200.00 at least.
Recently I had to deal with about four different bank workers who did not offer any information about how to deal with ther problem.
And another dozen from the USBI, who were not fguilty of anything because they were only collecting for the company that was trying to stick me with a bill several times larger than what I had originally accepted from Qwest
The AIG "insurance" cramming, onto your Wells Fargo account, may have originated with Wells Fargo passing customer account information to fraudulent marketers of such insurance products, similar to other reports in this thread.
You may even find that the alleged "insurance" has no value to you at all, as it might be for "disability" coverage which excludes your existing condition, or that prevents coverage if you are not currently employed. That was one allegation in the Texas class action against BofA, SmartStep et al.
USBI has a long history aiding and abetting a variety of fraudulent billers through cramming of charges onto local phone bills. The major phone companies are well aware of the questionable nature of such billing aggregator charges, and in some cases (Verizon, ATT) have settled with state Attorneys General over inadequate protection of their customers from such fraud. What exactly soes TeleCircuit claim they are billing for, and on what authorization?
As you have found, phone calls will just get you the brush off, and the fraud will continue. All complaints should be IN WRITING, mailed certified, to establish that the charges were disputed AS FRAIDILENT. This should be followed up with fraud complaints to the office of the Comptroller of the Currency (www.occ.gov) against Wells Fargo in connection with the AIG charges, and with FTC and your state Attorney General in both cases. Complaints involving fraudulent phone bill cramming should also be addressed to the FCC.
Regarding AIG/Wells Fargo, you should also file a fraud complaint with your state insurance commissioner, as your state's insurance laws may contain provisions requiring sellers of insurance to assess the suitibility of their offerings to prospective customers. Sometimes they may try to bluff you and claim this "insurance" isn't "insurance", trying to skirt state laws, but they probably don't want to risk challenge by state regulators since it can shut them out of doing business in the whole state, so this has reportedly shaken lose full refunds.
You need to cut off all automatic payments, and find a new bank who will protect your interests. Wells Fargo has not served you, their customer, well, neglecting their own fiduciary responsibility to you in favor of their own profit. They should have immediately advised you how to block and shut down unauthorized charges promptly, yet they chose to line their own pockets along with their thieving partners.
"...
Insurance company not sure why former AG sued it
June 14, 2013 9:30 AM
By Kyla Asbury
POINT PLEASANT – A company sued in October by former state Attorney General Darrell McGraw claims it is confused as to what it is being charged with.
McGraw filed the lawsuit on Oct. 2, 2012, in Mason Circuit Court, seeking civil penalties and injunctive and equitable relief to redress Intersections Insurance Service allegedly unlawful, unfair, deceptive and/or unconscionable practices in violation of the West Virginia Consumer Credit and Protection Act since Jan. 1, 2001.
..."
Here are their partners.
http://wvrecord.com/tag/darrell_mcgraw
"...
CIVIL FILINGS: Mason County
November 9, 2012 8:30 AM
By Lawrence Smith
Oct. 2 State ex. rel Darrell v. McGraw, Jr. vs. Intersections Insurance Services, Inc., Center Partners, Inc., Sitel Corps, Sykes Enterprises, Inc. and Aegon Direct Marketing Services, Inc.; Aegon USA; Aegon Financial Services Group, Inc.; Transamerica Advisors Life Insurance Company; …"
http://wvrecord.com/news/s-4171-mason-county/ ... with-ags-office
"...
Following adverse ruling, credit card company settles with AG’s office
June 25, 2013 11:04 AM
By John O'Brien
POINT PLEASANT – One of the eight credit card companies sued by former state Attorney General Darrell McGraw has reached a settlement with his successor.
On June 18, Mason County Circuit Court Judge David W. Nibert approved a settlement between First Premier Bank and Attorney General Patrick Morrisey. McGraw filed the lawsuit in 2011 against a group of credit card issuers over their payment protection plans.
The settlement is worth $112,500.
“This settlement is a success for West Virginia consumers,” Morrisey said.
“These consumers were enrolled and charged for a service if they expressed even an ‘interest’ in the program. Often they were not given an opportunity to review the terms or conditions, fee structure or how to collect benefits.”
...
Remaining defendants in the case are Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Discover Financial Services, GE Money Bank, World Financial Network Bank and HSBC Bank Nevada.
..."