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Credit Card Scam of the Day: Interest Rate Reduction
Tuesday, July 17. 2007
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Did you ever find out who this company was behind this? They told me Card Member Rate Reduction Services. They have a scriped "please press 8 to be placed on our do not call list" and if you press 8 it comes back that "that is an invalid entry."
I waited through the hold queue to try and get the name of the organization but they hung up on me before identifying themselves. No number was logged on my phone.
I didn't fall for the scam but it was very clever and I would like to see them shut down immediately.
I waited through the hold queue to try and get the name of the organization but they hung up on me before identifying themselves. No number was logged on my phone.
I didn't fall for the scam but it was very clever and I would like to see them shut down immediately.
Finding out who they really are is difficult even for law enforcement. They change names, locations, scripts, and scams on a regular basis. This also makes it very difficult to gather sufficient evidence to secure a conviction.
The "do not call" menu selection is there just to make them sound more legitimate for gullible potential victims. It's all about creating the impression of legitimacy.
Unfortunately the best way to stop these sorts of people is by educating the public. It might be impossible to beat them, but at least education can make it more difficult for them.
The "do not call" menu selection is there just to make them sound more legitimate for gullible potential victims. It's all about creating the impression of legitimacy.
Unfortunately the best way to stop these sorts of people is by educating the public. It might be impossible to beat them, but at least education can make it more difficult for them.
the phone number that came up on my phone is +50622251674-notice it has one too many digits but when you take the last one off and enter into google, it comes up as telemarketer, so others are getting these calls too.
[Ed. note: unfortunately, it's far too easy to send out any number as Caller-ID, so anyone with criminal intent can fake a legitimate number to throw people off the trail.]
[Ed. note: unfortunately, it's far too easy to send out any number as Caller-ID, so anyone with criminal intent can fake a legitimate number to throw people off the trail.]
These people have been calling me about 2 or 3 times a week for the last two months. In fact several of my friends have also been plagued by these scammers. I agree education is key to keeping honest people safe, however, when I reported the calls to local Police, they thought I was merely complaining about legitimate solicitation. What else can been done to stop this. It just makes me so mad that honest people are preyed upon!
Local police are completely unequipped to deal with this problem since it's frequently an international operation. In the USA I would think that the FTC and/or FBI are your best bets.
I also receive annoying calls several times a week and after hanging up, placing the # on a block list, requesting to be removed from their calling list etc to no avail ---I finally pressed# for positive reply and proceeded to give them a ton of misleading information that sounded real. As the “supervisor” got on the line to verify more information I continued to play interested, dumb, impaired etc (I have now done this several times) until it becomes apparent that I am “fooling them” or I get a “You waste my time” response from the supervisor ---then I tell them that calling my number will waste a lot more of their precious time if they keep me on their list. Maybe they will become as tired of me as I am of them.
[Ed. note: I have done this as well. I get fewer calls these days, but I'm not sure if wasting their time is a factor or not. It can be entertaining if you have some spare time, though.]
[Ed. note: I have done this as well. I get fewer calls these days, but I'm not sure if wasting their time is a factor or not. It can be entertaining if you have some spare time, though.]
I have received several calls from unknown phone number regarding rate reduction of credit cards. (6%) When I ask if I can call back because feeding grand child lunch right then. They disconnect and do not answer me.
I recently received a similar offer from a blocked number. Isn't it illegal for the numbers to be blocked?The members of the "Card Service" claimed to be in Arizona, but refused to give a contact number or to provide any information that would allow me to confirm the legitimacy of their company or offer. They could not tell me from whence they received my name and number. Finally, the speaker became rather belligerent--insisting that I initiated the call and he would have to hang up if I continued to ask so many questions. I hung up first. Please alert more people to this scam.
I have been receiving these calls and ignoring them due to the blocked incoming number. Finally, my wife answered one and when she informed the caller that we are on the "Do not call list" the person on the line became annoyed and said "F-you" and hung up. When we reported the incident to bellsouth, they said there was nothing they could do. Education is great, but these people need to be tracked down.
I have also received several calls from Card Services. Recording tells me how my card rates may increase and they can secure rate reductions. Problem is they don't answer. I punched in the number for a rep. and after the usual "next available rep." the line went dead. I am on the do-not-call also and have been searching for this outfit on line, to no avail. Who are they and how can they be stopped. If they don't follow the donotcall rules, they probably aren't following any other rules either. I'm really upset that I can't find them and give them trouble. Has anyone had any luck finding where they are?
These are criminals looking to steal your credit card number and personal details. They're not playing by the rules, and they don't want to be found.
I got a call from "Rate Reduction Center for Visa and Mastercard Holders" today. I knew it was a scam because the approach is similar to "Card Holders". I pressed 9 and was connected to Stephanie Wilson, agent #214385. She sounded African American. She 'aksed' me if I had a credit card balance over $6000 and that the offer was only for Visa and MC holders with accounts in good standing. She said the call was being recorded for quality assurance. Then she asked me for the name of the bank and type (Visa/MC) that I had the highest amount of debt with. I told her $30k with one card having $15k on it. Then she asked me for the expiration date. I told her that I needed to confirm that her company was legitimate so I asked her to tell me the legal name of her company. She said "Rate Reduction Center for V & MC holders". I said, that's a stupid name for a company. Then I told her I wanted a phone number so I could back to confirm that the company was legit. Of course, having them give me their number is like asking the Wolf to babysit Little Red Riding Hood, but I thought I could sucker them into giving me a legitimate telephone number for the police to trace. Stephanie declined and said that she couldn't give me that number until I was qualified; until she could confirm that at least one of my credit cards was in good standing. I said, I'll give you all the information you need as soon as I can verify that you are not running a scam. It sounded like she was getting ready to hang up so I scrambled a bit and said I wanted to talk to one of her supervisors. Stephanie indicated that the Super wouldn't be able to give me the number either but I persisted and a supervisor answered. The supervisor said that she couldn't give me a telephone number until I was qualified, at which time they would supply me with a toll free number. I asked how her company is associated with V & MC and she said they are a go between acting on their behalf to lower the interest rate for 1600 customers world wide and that if I didn't get in on this now, the opportunity would go to someone else. I reiterated my concern and said I just want to confirm you aren't running a scam and she said 'it is against the law to do anything that scams people out of their money, that's a federal offense' . Of course I agreed with her and said, just give me the phone number so I can confirm then I'll give you all my information. Before she hung up she said, we are not asking for your Social Security number so it can't be a scam. I reminded her that with a credit card number and expiration date, you can do almost anything these days. Then she hung up. I called back the local number that was on my call display and I got a recorded message that the number was no longer in service.
"Customer Care" from Dallas, Texas just called me and wanted to reduce my interest rates. Fortunately red flags started rising when she kept trying to get my credit card number, and avoided questions about the company.
I just got one of these calls a few minutes ago. If you have the time you can really have quite a bit of fun with these guys. I usually give them the third degree with all sorts of questions and then ask the guy what his problem is. Why he is unable to go out and get a real job and can only find a dishonest one in which he spends all his time trying to scam people. You will usually get a pretty strong reaction form the caller.
One day I really played along but I would never give out any reliable information, just false numbers, etc. When he said the number wasn't good, I would play dumb and tell him that I accidentally gave him my American Express number or some other excuse. To make a long story short, I kept this guy on the phone for about 20 minutes. In frustration he finally said, "Mr, I've spent more than 20 minutes of my time talking to you and I really need you to give me the information I need so I can help you reduce your interest rate." That's when I finally told him he was not going to get any info from me. That I new it was a scam, and I then asked him what his problem was that he was unable to secure legitimate employment and had to resort to spending his time scamming people. I figure the best way to hurt these people is in their pocket book, and do that by wasting as much of their time as I possibly can afford to and chalk it up as my days' relaxation or entertainment. I figure that every minute they are on the phone with somebody like me is a minute that they are making no money and are unable to use that time to scam someone else. It would be interesting to see what the longest anyone could stay on they line with one of these guys before they finally would give up and hang up. As I said, the longest I did it was for about 22-23 minutes. One of these days I may try to beat that time. As for now I try to make the person who called me as mad and irritated as I possibly can. The guy that hung up on me a few minutes ago really was quite irritated. This helps ease my irritation that we have these people violating our privacy by calling us at home trying to scam us out of our hard-earned money.
[Ed. Note: Completely agree! Try holding on to the line once they hang up too. Some of them use a front end dialler that transfers the calls to wherever they actually operate from. I have found that the front end sometimes doesn't know when the "agent" has hung up, so it keeps the line open. The more lines that get locked up like this, the fewer calls they can make (and the more they pay for long distance). You can hold a line for hours. If everyone did this, it wouldn't be long before their systems were completely blocked. Unfortunately all this will do is force them to upgrade, but the way I see it, every little bit of fighting back helps!]
One day I really played along but I would never give out any reliable information, just false numbers, etc. When he said the number wasn't good, I would play dumb and tell him that I accidentally gave him my American Express number or some other excuse. To make a long story short, I kept this guy on the phone for about 20 minutes. In frustration he finally said, "Mr, I've spent more than 20 minutes of my time talking to you and I really need you to give me the information I need so I can help you reduce your interest rate." That's when I finally told him he was not going to get any info from me. That I new it was a scam, and I then asked him what his problem was that he was unable to secure legitimate employment and had to resort to spending his time scamming people. I figure the best way to hurt these people is in their pocket book, and do that by wasting as much of their time as I possibly can afford to and chalk it up as my days' relaxation or entertainment. I figure that every minute they are on the phone with somebody like me is a minute that they are making no money and are unable to use that time to scam someone else. It would be interesting to see what the longest anyone could stay on they line with one of these guys before they finally would give up and hang up. As I said, the longest I did it was for about 22-23 minutes. One of these days I may try to beat that time. As for now I try to make the person who called me as mad and irritated as I possibly can. The guy that hung up on me a few minutes ago really was quite irritated. This helps ease my irritation that we have these people violating our privacy by calling us at home trying to scam us out of our hard-earned money.
[Ed. Note: Completely agree! Try holding on to the line once they hang up too. Some of them use a front end dialler that transfers the calls to wherever they actually operate from. I have found that the front end sometimes doesn't know when the "agent" has hung up, so it keeps the line open. The more lines that get locked up like this, the fewer calls they can make (and the more they pay for long distance). You can hold a line for hours. If everyone did this, it wouldn't be long before their systems were completely blocked. Unfortunately all this will do is force them to upgrade, but the way I see it, every little bit of fighting back helps!]
I just had a call today from a company that calls themselves One Source, supposedly specializing in interest rate reductions for your credit cards. They are smooth talkers! They tell you that you pay nothing to them if you have a credit card with at least $2500 owed to it and interest rates over 8%. They ask for the name of the credit card company, your account number, expiration date and even your 3 digit code on the back of the card! I told them I was not comfortable giving them this, and of course they assured me they needed all this information and the guy gave me their toll free number to call which was: 1-800-512-8877, which doesn't even exist! This guy called himself "Jarrod Evans" and he told me that he had 2 guarantees for me, one that guaranteed me to save over $2000 minimum in interest and that my interest rates would be permanently fixed in less than 30 days or they would pay me $698!
Then I was transferred to be recorded and at that time was told I was being charged a one time fee of $698. I told the guy to stop the recording, because I was told I was told I wouldn't be charged this, that I would be credited this if they couldn't save me at least $2000.
So the guy transferred me back to the salesman I first talked to, and this guy confirmed I would be charged the $698. I hung up and immediately called the credit card company and explained what happened. THIS IS A SCAM!!! NEVER GIVE OUT YOUR 3 DIGIT CODE TO ANYONE SOLICITING!! My credit card company immediately cancelled my card!
Then I was transferred to be recorded and at that time was told I was being charged a one time fee of $698. I told the guy to stop the recording, because I was told I was told I wouldn't be charged this, that I would be credited this if they couldn't save me at least $2000.
So the guy transferred me back to the salesman I first talked to, and this guy confirmed I would be charged the $698. I hung up and immediately called the credit card company and explained what happened. THIS IS A SCAM!!! NEVER GIVE OUT YOUR 3 DIGIT CODE TO ANYONE SOLICITING!! My credit card company immediately cancelled my card!
just tell them ok and take a really long time to find your wallet / purse then give them fake credit card numbers take up all their time and they will not call back again.
[Ed. Note: It's also good to put them on speakerphone and mumble, forcing them to make you repeat over and over (especially when you change the card number slightly each time). Although this is loads of fun on a slow day, they will call back... again and again and again. They are simply too stupid to purge the people who deliberately waste their time. Pity.]
[Ed. Note: It's also good to put them on speakerphone and mumble, forcing them to make you repeat over and over (especially when you change the card number slightly each time). Although this is loads of fun on a slow day, they will call back... again and again and again. They are simply too stupid to purge the people who deliberately waste their time. Pity.]
I got a call similar call yesterday from DHC Financial. He wanted my authorization for a $995 up-front fee to reduce my rates. When I told him to send me some info in the mail, he insisted that I authorize the charge first. I refused. When I called the number today 800-714-1455, I asked the man who answered where their company was located, he kept asking, "who is this" and "are you a client?". Since I had stupidly given them my credit card number yesterday, I called my bank to report that the card had been exposed to possible fraud. They immediately closed down that card number and set me up with a new one, but were not interested in reporting the scammers. Who can we, as consumers, in the U.S., report them to?
[Ed. note: Your bank may not be interested, but the Federal trade Commission certainly is! https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/]
[Ed. note: Your bank may not be interested, but the Federal trade Commission certainly is! https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/]
I understand that there are alot of companies out there that try to scam consumers. However there are a few legitimate companies that actually want to help consumers that are in need of this service. You must understand that some business owners in this industry do not want to hurt anyone. Honestly if I could offer this service for free I would definitely do so, however there are business expenses involved. We only profit approx. $50 off of each client enrolled after all of our expenses. So please understand this is a legitimate service we can not please every client 100% of the time, and if a client does not want the service I do not want to force them to take advantage of our help. Keep in mind that you can do your own taxes, you can change your own oil. But do you? That is my question to you.
[Ed. Note: Ooh, let's see, Mr. "Legitimate Businessman" how well your plea stands up...
1. You have no name. You use "First Platinum", which has no more meaning than me saying "Third Gold". Woo.
2. You have no home page... you pretend to be a financial services company but you don't have a web site. Yeah, right.
3. Your IP address is in Florida, travel scam capital of the world.
4. A web search for '"First Platinum" Credit' gives us this gem from the FTC no less:
Robert Barr and Candace Rodriguez, principals of Westcal Equipment, doing business as Pioneer First and PF Member Services, Inc., have agreed to settle federal charges that they engaged in fraudulent business practices. A federal district court judge entered default judgments against the corporate defendants on December 12, 2002. The FTC, with the State of Washington as co-plaintiff, filed charges against the defendants in August 2002 as part of "Operation No Credit" financial fraud sweep. The complaint alleged that the defendants advertised nationally on cable TV for their Pioneer First Platinum credit card, implying that the card was a major credit card. According to the FTC, the defendants guaranteed a Pioneer First Platinum credit card with a $5,000 credit limit and 0 percent interest for 12 months to anyone who was a legal U.S. resident, at least 18 years old, and had a checking account. When consumers responded to the ads, the defendants allegedly told them they had to pay an advance fee of $189 to receive the card. According to the FTC, the Pioneer First Platinum credit card was not a major credit card, but a catalog card good only for buying merchandise through Pioneer First's Web site and catalog.
(See http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/04/pioneerfirst.shtm)
So you know what? NO SALE. The Internet beats you at your own game. Nice try but hopelessly pathetic nonetheless. Try getting a real, legal job.]
[Ed. Note: Ooh, let's see, Mr. "Legitimate Businessman" how well your plea stands up...
1. You have no name. You use "First Platinum", which has no more meaning than me saying "Third Gold". Woo.
2. You have no home page... you pretend to be a financial services company but you don't have a web site. Yeah, right.
3. Your IP address is in Florida, travel scam capital of the world.
4. A web search for '"First Platinum" Credit' gives us this gem from the FTC no less:
Robert Barr and Candace Rodriguez, principals of Westcal Equipment, doing business as Pioneer First and PF Member Services, Inc., have agreed to settle federal charges that they engaged in fraudulent business practices. A federal district court judge entered default judgments against the corporate defendants on December 12, 2002. The FTC, with the State of Washington as co-plaintiff, filed charges against the defendants in August 2002 as part of "Operation No Credit" financial fraud sweep. The complaint alleged that the defendants advertised nationally on cable TV for their Pioneer First Platinum credit card, implying that the card was a major credit card. According to the FTC, the defendants guaranteed a Pioneer First Platinum credit card with a $5,000 credit limit and 0 percent interest for 12 months to anyone who was a legal U.S. resident, at least 18 years old, and had a checking account. When consumers responded to the ads, the defendants allegedly told them they had to pay an advance fee of $189 to receive the card. According to the FTC, the Pioneer First Platinum credit card was not a major credit card, but a catalog card good only for buying merchandise through Pioneer First's Web site and catalog.
(See http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/04/pioneerfirst.shtm)
So you know what? NO SALE. The Internet beats you at your own game. Nice try but hopelessly pathetic nonetheless. Try getting a real, legal job.]
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