Fucking scammers !

[sarettah]

On Saturday, in the mail, a suspicious looking note arrived for my son (he is currently on ship in the Persian Gulf), so, since the letter had that old "immediate action required" look to it, I opened it so that I could pass the info to him in email.

It was from an "ABC Finance Corp" with a Carlsbad, CA address telling him that his account was close to $500 in arrears and that if they didn't hear from him they would take action etc.

I passed the info to him this morning and then did a little research on them. Couldn't find them under Carlsbad, so I plugged their phone number into google and came up with hits on the same company, but with an address out of La Mesa.

Did a little more looking and came up with some hits on ripoff reports.

Apparently this company is involved in a scam that targets sailors. They sign up to get a "free" camera or some such and end up owing a couple of grand. :steemed:

So I am now waiting to hear back from the kid to see how deep in he is. I have told him NOT to send them any more money (don't know if he has sent them anything in the past but from what I am seeing, they mainly rip off via payroll deduction, so he probably has) and not to contact them in any way but instead to fill me in on the details and if he was scammed to get with Navy Legal ASAP. Once I have the details, if he has been scammed, I will get my lawyers (the real ones, not the 3 jews and the Italian) on it from this end. If he was scammed (which by now I am pretty sure he was) I want to take these assholes down big time. It is one thing to run a scam on folks, it is another thing to run a scam on active duty military off fighting the wars. That is beyond reprehensible imho.

So, anyone got any info on ABC Finance out of La Mesa ? Personal contact info etc would be very cool to get a hold of because they don't answer either their listed number or the 800 number they list on their statement.

some links about them:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff27527.htm

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff69971.htm

http://badbusinessbureau.com/reports/ripoff106625.htm

[Mike AI]

Wow that is fucked up.

I would write a concise letter with attatched details and send it to your district attorney, media, and anyone else who could expose these cockholsters.

These people should be executed!

[sarettah]

Originally posted by Mike AI@Oct 11 2004, 11:23 AM
Wow that is fucked up.

I would write a concise letter with attatched details and send it to your district attorney, media, and anyone else who could expose these cockholsters.

These people should be executed!
My son called ne from Bahrain this morning :)

He said he had a statement from them that he had gotten last week that said he owed $14.00.

He also said that yes, he had fallen for the scam and he had not wanted to tell me that he fell for it.

I told him that folks like these depend on folks being too embarassed to admit they were taken and urged him to get his ass to the ships legal officer and let them know about it.

Anyway, I called the finance office 800 number this morning and actually got a hold of someone. Told them I had a statement saying almost $500 in arrears and needed to know what it was about. They very quickly told me that the statement was wrong and that he only owed $14.00 and was current. I asked them to send me it in writing and they said they will.

So I think I have this one figured out. They obviously know his ships address because he received a statement there. Then they sent the past due statement to the home of record, hoping the parents will see it and pay it to keep their kid out of trouble. Probably worked pretty good prior to email.

Anyway, The kid is going to send me all the paper he has on it so I can give it to my lawyer and see what he wants to do.

Turns out the deal was for some cheap ass camera and film processing for life. He said the processing envelopes he is supposed to use are back in Japan. So when he gets back to home port, he will forward them to me and everyone I know will get free photo processing for life :) And if they don't do it, then we will have them on breach of contract on top.

So, we will get his money back either in cash or services :yowsa: