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Best Frauds -- Hot new Mini-Frauds. Ways companies are scamming you. |
| HOT NEW MINI-FRAUDS -- Ways companies are scamming you! |
| These reader submissions are typical of the
mini-scams companies pull on consumers daily.
The companies will always have some "convenient"
excuse why these public deceptions happen,
but they are unmotivated to fix them. ALL WE SAY IS -- READ, AND BEWARE! |
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Note -- There have been so many letters of feedback from readers who have been "taken" by the Tracfone scam -- that we moved them all over to another page, separate from this "Mini-Frauds" page. CLICK HERE TO READ THE TRACFONE CUSTOMER COMPLAINTS PAGE! |
AIRLINE FRAUDS |
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| Is HOTWIRE.COM now safe, or are they still doing this ? ON 10/01/01 WE DECIDED TO MAKE RESERVATIONS FOR SAN DIEGO ON LINE, SO WE COULD LEAVE AT A CERTAIN TIME. THE ONLY WAY HOTWIRE.COM WILL TALK TO YOU IS IF YOU GIVE THEM A CREDIT CARD NUMBER FIRST. (THIS HAS CHANGED IN THE LAST FEW DAYS ACCORDING TO AN ADD I HEARD ON THE RADIO). MAYBE MANY COMPLAINTS HAVE MADE THEM CHANGE THEIR POLICY. THEY MAKE A RESERVATION AND YOU HAVE TO TAKE IT BECAUSE THEY HAVE YOUR CREDIT CARD. WE CALLED TWICE TO CHANGE THE RESERVATION, BUT WERE TOLD THE RESERVATION WENT STRAIGHT TO THE AIRLINE (WHICH IS A LIE), AND THAT IT WAS OUT OF THEIR HANDS -- WE'D HAVE TO TALK TO THE AIRLINES. WE CALLED THE AIRLINES ABOUT A HALF HOUR LATER AND WAS TOLD THEY NEVER RECEIVED A RESERVATION FROM HOTWIRE. I TOLD THEM EVEN IF THEY DID MAKE THE RESERVATION, I DIDN'T WANT IT. I THOUGHT IT WAS DONE, UNTIL I GOT MY CREDIT CARD BILL. I'VE TRIED SINCE THEN TO FIX iT WITH HOTWIRE AND MY CREDIT CARD COMPANY WITHOUT SUCCESS. PLEASE HELP ME. THANKS, MIKE [ No state given ] -- Received March 1, 2002 Same HOTWIRE billing scam -- you decide ? I booked a flight with HOTWIRE.COM, but the
scehdule was too tight I called NWA. They denied receiving payment.
I told NWA to cancel because Rec'd Sept 2002 |
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| Unfortunately, United Airlines is not alone on this one .... UNITED AIRLINES has abused my trust and my credit card. Please help. I made airline reservations on the internet, www.UNITED.com, for a quick buisness trip, Portland to Denver and return. Their was a notice that this e-ticket was non-refundable or $100 would be charged for itinerary changes. My trip fell through. I notified UNITED to cancel my reservation, approx. two days before departure. UNITED had ample time to re-book my vacated reservation and might have arguably charged the "$100 for itinerary changes." UNITED has refused and re-refused to refund the $1153 they debited my credit card. UNITED claims this is their policy and that I may apply the money withheld against a future flight. 1. UNITED took my money without providing goods or service. 2. Prepaid travel credit makes customers captives of UNITED. 3. UNITED did not say they would ever return my $1153. Doesn't this amount to credit card theft and coehersion by UNITED? Consumers should be alerted. If UNITED takes $1000 from only 1000 customers they would keep an extra million dollars. With the enormous international scope of daily airline travel this could easily be done to 100,000 or more in a year. What a SCAM! Who can alert consumers as well as put a stop to this consumer abuse? Who can help get my money returned? T. K. [No state given] -- Received August 25, 2001 |
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PRESCRIPTION DRUG FRAUD |
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| Are Prescription Drugs the Greatest Scam in America? It is a known fact that there is more profit tacked onto prescription drugs than almost any other product sold in the United States today -- sometimes the profits to drug companies amount to 1000% or more of the cost of each pill. And yet, some of these "safe, FDA-approved drugs" can kill you. But if you pay so much for them, and the FDA has approved them, the MUST be safe, mustn't they? Don't be so gullible! Wake up! OPEN YOUR EYES! Here is a typical case with the "acclaimed" Prozac-generation of prescription "anti-depressant" drugs. Only those totally brainwashed by such drug use or by drug companies could not see the warnings in this reader submission: -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ I believe I have the worst fraud you'll come across. It is a group of antidepressants called SSRI'S -- and Prozac is the first marketed and the one I know the most about. There are terrible side effects from these SSRI'S that can cause Suicide and Violence. My family lost our Father to Suicide due to an adverse reaction to Prozac. Since his death we have been in touch with several Attorneys and members of the medical field. At least 7 to 10% of people who are taking SSRI'S will will have an adverse reaction and become Suicidal or Violent. So far according to Dr. David Healy from the University of Wales, 50,000 people have commited Suicide due to adverse reactions.The real problem is that the Pharmacutical companies settle there cases out of court for huge amounts of money, and they are bedfellows with the FDA. They write their own articles for publication in medical journals. The articles are written by drug company researchers, given to a outside doctor to review and sign his or her name to then submitted to a journal, and the doctors are paid to do this from the drug companies. The Drug companies are making so much money that they can cover up whatever they don't want the public to know about. Drs. are also paid in various ways to write out precriptions -- from trips, to thousands of dollars, just to get people who don't need to be on these drugs to use them. They tell you that these drugs are not addictive, but I also know first hand that they are, and you have to be weened off them very slowly, or they can cause terrible side effects. One of my sources of information is Dr. Anne Blake Tracy phd. She has studied SSRI'S and their side effects for 11 years, and is one of the most knowledgable people in her field. You can e-mail her at atracyphd or go to her web site at www.drugawareness.org. Somebody has to bring this out to the public -- so many people are dying and the drug companies are getting away with murder. Sincerly S.P. [No state given] -- Received 20 August, 2001 ------------------------------------------------------------------- We can do a lot better than this, Miss. S.P. In the process of scanning the Internet for other good resources on "Fraud", we found an Amazing Book that we think everyone in the country should read -- "The Shooting Drugs -- Prozac and its Generation Exposed on the Internet" It validates all of what Miss. S.P. is saying above, in very graphic detail, backed by hundreds of real-life accounts and horror stories gleaned from all over the world. It also shows how these drugs are responsible for the waves of recent school shootings across America -- which stunned us! This book is extremely thorough -- and very gripping reading!!! We strongly urge anyone interested in this issue to go to that book site -- http://www.truebooks.com/prozac.html And at least read the description of the book, it's summary, and back cover. You can't ignore the truth forever, even if you have "blind faith" in doctors! |
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OTHER MINI-FRAUDS |
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MOST RECENT DIGIBID SUBMISSION -- Digibid isn't just screwing vendors and sellers.... LET THE BUYER BEWARE!
I had a winning bid of $2075. on a Roland recording workstaion. I submitted
payment by cashiers check and awaited confirmation that the product shipped.
It never happened.
After the alloted contact time passed without a word, I requested a refund. I got the run around for a month. First, I was told I had missed the payment cycle for the month and that a refund would be sent out on the next cycle. That date came and went without so much as a word from Digibid. Countless E-mails went unanswered when I received notice that I would be contacted within 10 days concerning payment. 10 days passed and again... no word. A phone call netted a promise of payment within 30 days. 30 days pass... nothing, and of course...not a word from Digibid. Further contact finally got the admission that a re-organization was in the process and I was assured that I would receive my refund in full in equal monthly payments very shortly. Shortly came and went... so did longly, with nothing to show for it. A couple months ago I received a letter assuring me payments would be going out... still waiting..... If you've sued these guys, or managed to get a nickel back from them, please contact me and let me know how you did it. I'm just about ready to get my money in blood. e-mail me: Wise1man "at" aol.com Submitted November 10, 2003 |
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Time to take the DigiBid Fraud Seriously -- look at the latest. This comment, just in today, 15 August 2003, indicates that Digibid needs federal investigation -- I have been waiting for a $400 payment for over a year. I had no problem with them for about a year before this happened. I called them for about 2 months (don't bother emailing them as I NEVER received one response) and they kept saying that it will be in the mail in a few weeks. Well, about 3 months later I got a letter in the mail from the president who said that they were in financial trouble and that they were going to initiate a Paypal payment plan to avoid problems like this again. Why they didn't tell me this for the last 3 months I was waiting I don't know. The letter also stated that no matter what I would get paid no later than March 30th. GREAT! 6 months away. So I waited and to my surprise they did not pay me. I called again and actually talked with the president and he said they were in the process of refinancing and that once that goes through I will get paid in FULL. He also said that they decided not to file for bankruptcy as he wanted to follow through with his promise to pay up. In the meantime he would send me partial payments (which I have yet to receive). OK I called again and they said the the refinancing was going through soon. ANYWAY, I am gonna wait till the end of the month to call again. Unfortunately there really is not anything to do about it. The staff is nice if you are and are fairly sympathetic. I just hope that they do not cancel there phone lines as after that I will have NO WAY to contact them. I would consider small claims court but am not sure that it is worth $400. What has been your experience? Kent If you are affected by DigiBid Problems: Digibid given me the run around for months now. Go to www.DIGIBIDsucks.com. You can get the president's phone #'s and email addresses there. SR Latest DigiBid Problem, posted March 5, 2003 -- reader requests help My experience with digibid.com parallels two submissions on your website [listed below]. I had two successful auctions finalized in early December 2002. Then I submitted two more items which sold near the end of December but have not been paid by Digibid. Digibid has failed to reply to my inquiries about non payment. I have some information about digibid that is not disclosed by the other two submissions. If anyone wants to contact me directly to pool efforts and resources, contact me at amf1 "at" stargate.net. Thank you. Anthony Is DigiBid a bidding scam or fraud? Consider this reader's input. There is a company on the Internet, www.digibid.com, that purports to sell musical instruments and equipment all across the country. What they do is collect a credit card number from both the seller and buyer. Once the seller acknowledges receipt of the merchandise, they debit his credit card. I am the seller of a musical keyboard instrument in this transaction and I received notification that the merchandise was delivered and accepted. I was told that I would receive payment within one week of when the merchandise was received. That was 5 weeks ago and I cannot get Digibid to return my questions/concerns via email. I checked with Directory Assistance and they have an unlisted number. I have been scammed. Digibid lists 2 mailing addresses: Digibid 8850 SW 129th Terrace Unit B Miami, Florida 33176 Digibid 3677 Collections Center Drive Chicago, Illinois 60693 They have 2 known email addresses: customerservice@digibid.com digibid@bellsouth.net Any assistance or advice that you can give would be greatly appreciated. I am pursuing legal alternatives at this point. Thank you. C mG [no state given] Is this a repeat of the above DigiBid problem? Digibid Customer Service, After not receiving payment for a successful auction and not receiving answers to two previous email queries, I was deeply disturbed to find that Digibid has no listed phone number to call and that your company is showing up on "known fraud" consumer alert websites. I have enjoyed both buying and selling on your site in the past, and do not want to believe that your business has become corrupt. Please prove me wrong by responding today, or my next step will require me to seek legal counsel on the issue in order to resolve the matter. Thanks for your attention. B.G. [no state given] |
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Internet Learning with PCDI is now a Marketing Scam While on the internet I was searching for info on home study courses. i ran across P.C.D.I. They had a spot to request free info on their courses, i picked a course(vet tech) and gave my address for them to send the info. Two days later i received the first lesson along with a payment invoice. this paper said that i had sent my first tuition payment via electronic check. They had my name with a fake birthdate, fake S.S number and a fake checking account. After calling them over and over again i finaly was able to talk to a real voice who told me that She would stop my classes and that everything would be worked out.... WRONG! The next week i started recieveing bills for opting out of the program(150 dollers) then they started calling my home insisting that i pay for canceling something i never agreed to... i signed no paper...everything but my name was wrong...etc. Now the collecters are calling!! by the way, i did receive my free info.....yesterday. H. L., [no state given] Our reply -- This is typical pushy, undercover marketing. The best defense is to dig in your heels with all companies like this, refuse to pay for ANYTHING that you did not specifically ask for, and NEVER NEVER pay anyone online with a DEBIT card -- only use credit cards, as you can dispute the charge before it happens. It's an awful thing to say, but these days you almost HAVE TO dispute charges immediately you know that a company is sending you things or charging you things you never asked for. The internet is a great resource for learning, it's too bad it has to be full of scam operators. Be wary in the future, and say up front on the sign-in page, you will accept nothing without advance notice, and you refuse to pay, unless you specifically say you will -- after you evaluate it. A pre-emptive statement by you is legally binding on them, but sometimes you have to threaten to sue to get them to stop harassment. Aug 23, 2003 |
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Sweepstakes Fraud by Mail -- IS FINE PRINT A FRAUD??? Here is a very perceptive letter from a U.K. reader -- note the "Fine Print" question at the end. Hi, I'm a UK resident, and in my mail today I received a 'Candidate Paper' from 'Opportunities Unlimited Publications, Inc' of 1401 Armour Road, North Kansas City, MO 64116 USA. The document has all over it such labels as: - 'Real Document', 'Known Candidate', 'Official Nominee' 'Complete and return this document - money payout matter', 'Special Services Division'. It appears to say that I'm in line for a payout of $15,000 dollars (£9,250) - all I have to do is answer one question, sign and initial the document and send it back in their pre-labelled (not post-paid) envelope, together with a cheque (check) for £10 - registration fee. They have gone to great lengths to make it look official and like a legal document, including a picture similar to the 'Royal Coat of Arms'. Now I'm not mug enough to send them anything - but many others might be, and they ought to be warned to treat such communications with caution. Apart from collecting who knows how many checks for £10 (or the equivalent in whatever country), and perhaps never awarding any prize at all, - there are more serious implications. They obtained details of where I live, and if I return the certificate with a cheque, they will then have a copy of my signature & initials together with my bank details; and I would have returned to them the only evidence there is that they contacted me at all! I imagine that it not beyond them to obtain details of my credit card accounts also, and thereby be able to use them. Of course this may be a legitimate sort of sweepstake where they make much more than they pay out - but I will not be taking part. If you wish I can send you a copy of the 'certificate' - the original is being sent to the Metropolitan Police Fraud Squad. ON A MORE GENERAL NOTE: 'Small print' has always annoyed me. It is nothing but a vehicle for deception and should be made illegal worldwide. If something is pertinant to a contract then it should be in as big a font as the font used to 'sell' the goods or services. I think that there should be a worldwide campaign by consumers to get our governments to prohibit important matters from 'small print' so that it cannot be used to deceive/mislead. L.D. U.K. The last point about "Fine Print", we wholeheartedly agree with. If there is fine print in a contract, they are probably hiding something to your detriment, which of course is to the company's benefit. We agree that it should be made illegal (or at least non-binding) worldwide. i.e. they can say what they want in the "fine print", but that doesn't mean you are legally bound to it. Unfortunately, this U.K reader is WAY ahead of the rest of the world on this point. We suspect it will take 20 years before others wake up to the clarity of his comment -- least of all attorneys who "love" fine print. June 2003 |
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Watch out for Penske and K-Mart -- Another Enron, perhaps? Recently Roger Penske withdrew his automotive service centers from K-Mart. Many of us have warranties on the work performed at these centers. Recently, when I tried to locate someone who would cover the warranties, I found Goodyear. They called Penske who suddenly developed time deadlines on all of their work. Furthermore, when I requested copies of all of my invoices, Penske said at first the records were destroyed. Then, they said K-Mart might have them. K-Mart said Penske took the records with them. In any case, if you have a warranty with Penske, they require you to have every receipt for the work. All records HAVE been destroyed. Even if you have the receipt, the warranties are not written on the invoices. They suddenly claim a 90 day warranty on critical work such as brake jobs. If the service center was making constant repairs on their defective work, there is no record. All in all, this smacks of the same kind of work that Enron made famous recently with destruction of their records. K-Mart is under criminal investigation and I hope Penske will come under investigation also. Sincerely, B.H. SC Received May 28, 2002 |
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Sounds like a typical Internet Billing Scam, and Name Abuse, to us. I recently was charged on my credit card by ediets for a program I did not want or receive. I checked into the diet offer they advertised on the Internet and looked into it out of curiosity. They required that I answer several questions to "register" so that they could "better help me" get the "free evaluation and newsletter." However, after getting into the process, they revealed a charge and so I tried to cancel and get out of it. The next thing I know my charge card bill arrives with a charge to ediets. I called them to try to question it and they rudely handled the situation and hung up on me. I feel they are taking advantage of women in an area that is a great emotional struggle for so many and taking their money as well. Can you look into this? I am not as concerned about the money as the issue. Thank you. P.T.B. [no state given] PRESUMABLY THE COMPANY IS -- WWW.EDIETS.COM -- SLICK WEBSITE WATCH OUT FOR THEM!! |
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| If I had a Million! Another sweepstakes fraud? You decide ... I received the Tijani Useni email (did not respond of course). In the course of investigating what it was, came across your website. There was another incident which happened a couple of days back. A person called up and claimed that I had won an international lottery for 1.2 million dollars and that he was an independent verifier who confirmed the correctness of the person's name and address. He was trying to find out about my address and telephone#(which happened to be wrong). He said that a representative will fly over and hand over the check for 1.2 million. Since then the caller (which does not show on caller id) kept calling trying to reach me. The person calling had an accent and did not appear very educated on the phone. Thought you should know. S. V. [no state given] |
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| "Cramming" and Fraudulent Billing of Voice Mail Service to Phone Bills Here is another submission we received, about which we have no confirmation, so far. Pay careful attention to this one, as it looks like a really crafty trick: I am in the middle of a very big law suit concerning the fraudulent practice of "cramming." This fraudulent practice concerns thousands upon thousands of unsuspecting victims. Cramming occurs when a company "crams" a voice mail service, for example, into your monthly phone bill. A person that gets crammed never even has the service that he/she is being billed for. In the first six months of 1998, the FTC received 6,000 complaints concerning cramming (these arejust the people who caught it). Since then, cramming has been used to fraudulently extract millions from consumers. The sad part about it is that our government indirectly (or directly; who knows anymore) helped these companies to practice such scams because of "deregulation." If you do your research on this scam, you will see how big it really is. I wish I could get the names of all these people that were victimized by this fraudulent practice! Mr. D. [no state given] RESPONDENTS! Please give your state when you write in. Each state needs to know these frauds are going on in their state, so they know they are obligated to fix them. We can only strongly encourage the person who submitted this complaint to send us more specific information about how the billing appears on your phone bill, and how to detect the fraud, so that others can be wary of it. If enough people write in, we can devote a whole page to the issue and act as a clearinghouse for people affected. The issue of fraudulent charges appearing on your phone bill is only going to get worse, as some companies are now using phone bills as a way to conduct "e-commerce" on the internet. People need to look at their phone bills carefully each month, to make sure the charges are valid, and you really did make the calls listed. If you don't believe it, read the next mini-fraud. |
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| THE PERFECT LITTLE TEL SCAM NO ONE WILL EVER NOTICE, RIGHT? This one happened to this site's Webmaster -- so here is my contribution to the mini-frauds. I looked at my L.D. calls one day on the main telephone carrier's bill (like Qwest, Southwest Bell, Pacific Bell, or whoever you have -- this is where all the fraudulent charges will appear). I never normally look at them, but for some reason, this time I did, and there I saw the following: Switched Access Communication -- Collect Call, Allentown, Pa. -- $ 6.00 I thought "Huh, that's strange" and put the bill down. But later it began to bug me. "Hey, wait a minute, I don't know anyone in the entire state of Pennsylvania, let alone Allentown, and I haven't accepted any collect calls for months and months. What the devil is going on here?" I called my main telephone carrier, and note carefully their cop-out: "We only are a billing agent for other companies. We can't adjust the call, you will have to call Switched Access Communication to resolve this call." What a lie! They are a collection agent for other companies who bill through them -- if you don't believe it, try NOT paying those charges on your bill, and see what they say. The woman finally admitted they are indeed a collection agent too. So they are implicated right in the middle of any scam that goes through their billing system -- even if they try to deny it. So I did what she said and called "Switched Access Communication", and you'll never guess what they said: "We are only a billing company for other companies who bill through us, we have nothing to do with any calls we bill, we only transfer the charges on. You'll have to call the company that does the Collect Billing from Payphones." So this collect call was from a payphone -- therefore NO WAY to track who made it. I called the company who bills collect Calls from Payphones through them (Integretel, I think), and after 30 minutes on hold, I was hit by a message jabbering in Spanish, before the English came on. So now I learned that a Mexican Telecom company was billing collect calls from U.S. Payphones through a third party, which were being transferred to my phone bill, and there was NO WAY to track them or dispute them. Nice, huh? When some Mexican woman finally answered, she acted as if it was irrelevant, and asked if this was a business line.....I was smart enough to say "NO", because if I'd said yes, they'd say there was no way for me to tell if someone else at the business did not accept a collect call. I said "Only I answer the phone." Guess what her response was -- you'll never guess.... "Well, there is no way to tell if you accepted that call or not; we might be able to give you credit, but it takes 8-12 weeks, and sometimes doesn't go through, so you'll have to call us about every month to see if it was credited to your account." I had already wasted almost 2 hours tracking down this company, for a lousy $6.00 bogus phone charge -- I certainly wasn't going to waste more days checking up on their incompetence -- and they know it. Instead, what I did was call back my main telephone service carrier to tell them they were in the middle of a big telephone charging scam. Guess what their response was? They never responded! In other words, they couldn't care. They kept billing me the lousy $6.00 that I refused to pay, until I finally called the Executive offices of my main Telephone Carrier, and asked them to send back the charge! What a ridiculous ordeal to stop a $6.00 fraud! Conclusion & Principles Is this a trivial incident? NO WAY! I figured that if the Mexican Telecom company randomly bills 100,000 people scattered throughout the U.S. each month for bogus "collect calls from Payphones", and 90% of those people never bother to check their bills, they get half a million dollars of fraudulent revenue each month that the local telephone carriers can't be bothered dealing with, because the calls are too "trivial" to worry about. What a perfect little scam to net $6 million extra revenue each year that no one will ever notice. Too bad I did, because now it's here on this site, and everyone can learn about it. The really distressing part about this perfect mini-fraud is that the big telephone carriers simply don't care; it doesn't bother them that they're smack in the middle of telephone billing scams! FEEDBACK ON "THE PERFECT LITTLE SCAM" ABOVE -- SAME THING!!! Hi. I found your site and read with interest the webmaster's tale of bogus long distance collect call billing. The same thing happened to me. FORTUNATELY, I had a happier ending. I wanted to share with you how this company hides behing multiple layers of billers: On my Verizon (local phone) bill, there is a charge from Integretel, Inc., billed on behalf of Switched Access Comm, for $5.05 for a 4 minute collect call from "Scotcht...", NY. Same story as the webmaster, we never received a collect call/ don't know anyone from there, etc. So Verizon bills us on Integretel's behalf. Well, Integretel is a billing agency, billing on Switched Access's behalf. Fortunately, when I called Integretel and insisted that we never received the call, they agreed to a "one time credit." The rep read some preprinted statement that "Switched access operates pay phones in hopitals, businesses..." She then (of course!) asked if I had any family or friends who may have accepted the call (like I'm some kind of moron who has this stream of people coming to my house in Maryland and taking calls from New York). I also asked if there was anyway to find out who supposedly made the call, or where from, and I was told that Switched Access didn't have a phone number and I could write them. Well, I have my credit, so forget that. Anyway, here are the lessons that I took from the incident: 1. Like you pointed out, these companies hide in layers of billers. Use that to your advantage and tell the biller that you didn't make or take the call and won't pay. (Don't get caught in this, "well maybe someone else made the call.") 2. It looks like this may start happening more- what a pain. Thanks! D. L., Maryland Received Feb 25, 2002 |
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MORE TELEPHONE "CRAMMING" BY INTEGREL -- THE FRAUD CONTINUES My phone bill has been crammed with a voice mail service charge that I know I didn't sign up for. I cancelled directly with the company. Of course it showed up again this month. Looks like another phone call to clear it up. The company is Integretel Inc. It says it was billed on behalf of VM Monthly. I called the phone company and they said it was pretty common and they have had a few complaints. B.J.S, NY Received October 27, 2003 |
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NEXT ONE? If you've been taken, send us a complaint -- we'll share it here with everyone! DO IT to help your fellow consumers! Latest update 27 November, 2003 |
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