Internet Regulation - Part...(oh hell, I don't remember the part)....CONTINUED!!

National Platinum digital check.  They just drew it up, and poof!!  Instant money out of YOUR account!

I bring you this post America, due to the fact that something has re-reared its ugly head (is it possible to re-rear?  I suppose all is possible in the English Language...lol)

Three years ago, my wife and I were looking a little sad, money-wise.  This of course was not long before my home was stolen from me (See INTERRUPTION OF SERVICE - PART X).  We got online and checked out a few companies, and selected one, then filled out the application.  We then got another pop-up, concerning a membership with a place named National Platinum, which was, at that time, located in Charlotte S.C.  We have since discovered that these people sure get around.

There's a site on the web (well, to be honest, more like about 10-50 sites+++) that mentions this wonderful company..and some others just like it.  The BBB gives them a D.  I think they're being awfully nice, really.  Here are some of the names they've gone by, as well as some online businesses they've been affiliated with:

National Platinum (This was their name back in 2010, and I noticed complaints as late as 2012, and then they just stop...I'm not entirely sure they're still dumb enough to use that one).  At the same address, they were also called Maximum Platinum.  They have had offices in Jacksonville, N.C., as well as Reno, NV.

NSC (National Credit Services) - This one's a doozy.  I'll get back to this one.

ULSC - United Lending Services Co.

Can Capital (www.cancapital.com)

Money Start (www.mmoneystart.com)

Magic Installment Loans (magicinstallmentloans.com)

Just to name a select few.  And, just so you know...I'm not just pulling names out of thin air. Please, if you would, go to:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/national%20platinum

...as well as the BBB, and look up the primary company (National Platinum...a name I'm guessing they no longer use).  Amazingly enough these people have been getting over on America...FOR YEARS!!  With the same M.O. all along, no less.

Oh.  Just another loan company on the take you think?  Yup.  There is that.  But there's tons more.  See, this place doesn't just do loans.  Matter of fact, I think it's rather safe to say that these people don't do loans...at all.  No, these folks are...well, they're a trip, I'll give them that.  Thank God I'm a law student, or I would have been just as bamboozled by these folks as my wife was...wait, no, is...no, let's make that "Might be for some years to come".  Here's how the whole thing went down:

See, they pop up as you fill out your info for a payday loan.  Whether personal, or business, it matters not.  It became frighteningly apparent, rather quickly, that these folks are the ones that run the show, and are actually in charge here, not the original folks that you were signing up with.  Oh, sure, you can ignore the pop-up and just close it...but once it's there, it doesn't exactly go away.  If you read any of it, it offers you a 10K line of "credit, on a card, then when you receive this card (and a catalogue of their choice of items) you're allowed to charge any of these items offered...with a small down-payment on the item, using your credit card, of course.  What they DON'T tell you is, that if they, National Platinum, after checking your credit (which I'm betting is also done by them) determines your credit to be crap (after you pay them their $20 membership fee) then the "down payment" on the product is going to be around 75-85 percent of the full price...and the rest of it is "borrowed"to you at 30% interest.  But of course, a smarter person would just shut it down.  Funny thing is, next thing you know, even though you didn't even look at it, there's a rather large sum of money being taken out of your account...somewhere around $100.  When we noticed this, they had already taken that amount twice.

They had produced and sent an electronic check to the bank, using the routing and account numbers that we had entered into the loan application, and used it to draw money out of our account...without permission.  Verbal permission that is, I'm sure, in the loan app, it probably reads that they are allowed to do this, under whatever umbrella business name they might have been using at the time.

In a panic, we rushed to close the account before any more debits were made, and called Wells Fargo, where we had the joint account.  They told us there was NOTHING they could do about it, except what we had done, close the account, then report it as fraud to the police.  Nothing was ever said about getting the charges reversed, yet another thing I just love about banks.  They won't tell you anything that might assist you, especially if it costs THEM money.  But that's been discussed in other posts, and if it hasn't, you can sure bet it will be.

It was certainly no shock to me, that, upon calling their "Customer Service" line, I received nothing.  No, no, I take that back.  I received rudeness.  I received yelling.  I received threats.  I even received a few hang ups when I asked to speak to a supervisor.

Now, granted, if this had been all that had happened, we would have written it off as another mistake made without checking into the company.  What would happen next surprised even me.

We soon began (both of us) getting calls from these people...claiming NOT to be these people, but law enforcement.  Lawyers.  The threats were evil at best, and full of things you could never imagine anyone, even those that are about scams, using.  "We're going to be serving you papers to appear in court" and "We're going to be putting out a warrant for your arrest...today!"  One day she called me to tell me that someone had talked to her boss, to tell her that someone from our police department would be down to put her in handcuffs and arrest her there on the spot, if she didn't re-open her account and pay them immediately.  At the time, I had not attended law school as yet, but I was sure that whatever they were saying was quite illegal.  I reverse looked-up the number, and found that these people were in South Carolina...but that the calls were coming from somewhere in unincorporated South Dakota somewhere.  They called themselves representatives of Wells Fargo bank, and the company name was NCS.

Knowing this was the case, I contacted the police departments in the area.  They had said that I would have to file harassment in my state, then they would contact their police departments in South Dakota.  I thought of a better idea.  I told her to have her boss take any phone calls, then her and I both got our numbers changed, and after a week or so, the calls stopped.

And so, we had gotten rid of them...or so it seemed.  Not just a week ago, three and a half years later, my now separated wife called me to tell me that I wouldn't be able to reach her anymore, that someone had called to tell her boss that an attorney in New Jersey, who worked for a company there, was serving papers to have her entire check garnished, and if she didn't make payment arrangements immediately to pay them $1200, that she would be arrested by the Polk County Sheriff's Department, here in Des Moines, Iowa.

I told her to give me the number.  I called this person, who was, indeed in (unincorporated, once again) New Jersey.  I called the man and threatened him to leave her alone, that he was harassing her at work, and that he was to cease all collection activity toot-sweet.  It didn't stop.  For the entire day, they called her...and me. I got a different person's name every time I called the place, and obviously people were on the phone a lot, because I kept getting their answering machines about every time I called...and got through to someone twice.  The first time they answered they just said "Hello".  Wow.  The 2nd time, they used my name...Bruce.  I hadn't said a single word, either time.  I could hear a sea of voices on the other end talking to people on the phone.  I finally decided to make them a scary enough threat...I threatened to come to Belle Mead, New Jersey with as many bombs as I could carry, to blow up the building they worked in.  I never heard from them again.  Neither has she.  That's what it took to make them stop.  The name of the company making the calls?  NCS.  National Credit Services.

I have the feeling, though, that they'll be back.  After I went, once again, down to our local police department, to once again file charges (which, by the way, garnered zero results the last time we'd done it), I talked to the detective there about it, and he said "Oh, we get complaints about things like this all the time." The stories differ, but it's evidently rampant."  As for how these people get away with doing it so long, and why they don't get in trouble for impersonating law enforcement officials, or lawyers, is beyond me.  The BBB has 50+ logged complaints against the former incarnation of this company, and Ripoff Reports, who is dedicated to exposing these kinds of scams has over 128, on National Platinum alone.  For NCS (National Credit Services), the company that was supposedly hired by Wells Fargo to retrieve payments on the money that we supposedly owed National Platinum (funny, that...I'm thinkin' these are the same people), has 151 reports on the same site.  That link is here:

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/specific_search/NCS

How this stuff goes on and on unchecked is beyond me.  As I studied this "Electronic Check" closer, I remember noticing the name it was made out to (besides the name of the company), Ryan Greaney.  This must be the mastermind, I'm thinking.  I looked up the name, and the closest thing I could find was a Ryan Greaney, from Jacksonville, N.C., as being the son of a lady who had her obituary online.  Sounds like the same guy to me, but it's hard to tell.  For all we know, this guy changed his name to mimic someone more famous.  There are other people with that name that own corporations.  Hard to say.  Either way you slice it, there's someone out there actually getting away with this stuff, and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with lax rules on how a business is allowed to operate on the Internet.