SCAM ALERT: Account services wants to lower your interest rate?
Please spread the word about this. Feel free to repost this anywhere you can with a link back to me. I’m still getting spam phone calls from “Heather” at “Account Services” who wants to lower my credit card interest rates. It’s an automated message. If you want to speak to someone you press 1, at which point a man answers. The clues that this is not legitimate:
- They don’t say what credit card they’re with. A legitimate business would. You just know they’re going to ask for your account number, and suddenly you’re going to be overdrawn.
- It comes up “unknown caller” on CallerID with no phone number. Legitimate businesses don’t block their name and number. Individuals may, but not businesses.
- When you tell them you know they’re a scam and to stop calling or you’ll call the authorities, they say they’ll “talk to you tomorrow”. More on my call to the authorities in a moment. Obviously, a real business would be concerned if you mistakenly thought they were a scam, and would say something like, “I assure you we’re not, but I’ll be happy to take you off our list.”
- My number is unpublished and I’m on the Do Not Call list. I don’t get telemarketing calls, so it’s a safe bet unsolicited calls that come through to me are on auto-dialers.
- My creditors don’t have my landline, where these calls are coming in. I use my cell phone.
The problem is: not everyone will have all these clues. Some people may be so desperate to lower their interest rates in this challenging economy that they won’t be as careful as they should be.
Today I called the police and spoke to a detective. Unfortunately, there’s not much they can do because the caller has masked his identity. They can’t trace the call because a crime needs to have been committed before they can get a warrant and all that.
Then I called the phone company (Verizon). They can’t do anything to stop him either, but they do offer a service that blocks calls from unidentified callers. This does not block callers whose numbers come up without a name. If it does block a legitimate caller, it plays a message that tells him to hang up and dial a combination of numbers, then redial you so his number will show on Caller ID. Legitimate callers should have no problem with this.
Again, spread the word. If you get one of these calls, please comment here. It may be that it’s just someone local to me doing it rarely, but it could be a nationwide racket. If so, then we need to collect enough complaints for police to be able to match up the cases of identity theft that will happen when someone falls for this scam.
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Posted in Scam Notices on February 25, 2008
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I just got a call. Great job on this site!!! I googled them while on the phone. They said they were with Eperian. Same bogus information. Persistent buggers…. I hope they get caught!!!! When I was transferred to the supervisor, here is the info I got:
Alan Bues
Account Services
(800-945-2101).
I asked where they are located and he said in Atlanta, GA. I am shocked that some Federal Agency cannot go after these scumbags!!!! Once the guy asked me for my account and I told him that if they are with Experian, they should have that info. He tried convincing me that they need to make sure that I am the right person and there are thousands of people with visa and MC accounts. So, I got into it with them, just for $hits and giggles. BEWARE!!!!!
I just had a phone call from Account Services and I pressed 1 to speak to someone. I asked her how she got my number and she hung up on me. The number that showed up on my phone was 480-621-0568.
I have gotten a call from them four different times and four different times i have asked them to remove me from their mailing list and they hang up on me keep calling back!!!! How do I get rid of them???
Just got a call from “Account Services”. When I asked what bank they are with the woman said “Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Visa, Discover” I cut her off there and asked her if she expected me to think that all of those banks are owned by the same company. She said they are all different companies, but that “Account Services” is a company that is used by all of those banks. Un-huh…However, once I told her my interest rates are all under 5% she lost interest and said that she is only called to help those with much higher interest rates. Kind of odd that she wouldn’t even try to get any account info, my name, anything. I know she can’t do much with an estimate of my average interest rate…so what did she really want?
There was a number on my caller ID though when she called: 480-621-0568
When googled the number pops up as being used for a few different telemarketing things. None of the posts were satisfied customers though.
Provide the information to your state’s Attorney General’s Consumer Fraud division. It takes a lot of information for them to be able to actually actively do something so the more people who report them, the more likely it is they will be able to investigate.
I get these calls all the time from account services and when you ask them for there company address they tell you they can not provide you with it for security reasons. The number they called me from today was 16163180014. I am also on the do ot call list on the land line and cell phone, however I have gotten more calls since being on this list than I have ever received prior to being added. I think the government sells the information, and lord knows they do nothing when you contact them to complain.
They are FCMA located @ 3500 Aloma Ave., Winter Park, Fl 32792. They can be reached @ 1-877-232-0788. I call them to chat and waste their time just like they waste mine when I have nothing else to do. They say VISA or MasterCard makes the initial call and if you push 1 you are calling them. Both VISA & MC categorically deny any involvement. If you are on the DNC go to your state’s AG site and file an online complaint. They issue cards from some off name banks and charge an upfront fee $500 – $1500 to get you a lower rate from folks like IBERIA bank.
Yep. Called the 1-877-232-0788 number and asked them to verify what they did, described the telemarketing call that I got and when I asked whether they were located in Atlanta, the guy got off the phone fast and handed it to a supervisor. She would not answer any question directly. So I do think this is the right name of the company and address. I am going to make a complaint to my attorney general’s office to see if they will do something to shut these crooks down.