I get a lot of tips and emails from readers. What you will find below is one very detailed email I received from a reader recently that talks about their frustration with a number of companies.
The reason I am posting this email is because it is the second time I’ve heard a similar story in two days from two different people. It’s either irony or a sign to share this with you.
If you have any advice or suggestions for this consumer, please post them in the comments section below.
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Dear Mr. Rhode,
I am writing to you on a theme very similar to what others have posted on your site: being misled and cheated by debt consolidation programs.
Back in April of last year, a friend of mine asked me if I had any high balances that I needed to payoff, as he know I was going through some financial hard times. So I asked him to find a reputable company that would handle the consolidation of my debts.
I joined the program, with my friend handling the accounting and paperwork with the debt relief agency. After the first few months, I noticed that the payout of my monthly payment through Noteworld was being dispersed as admin fees, origination fees, maintenance fees.
I had the phone number to the ESP Solutions Company as well as online access to my account. I tried several times to reach them; however I only got their voicemail (even during business hours) but never received any calls back. I also went into the online tool, where they have a feature to send messages through their tool. I did this several times with no responses.
As I was doing my due diligence, at the same time I asked my friend to look into the matter of the money being dispersed. He too attempted to contact them, with no avail. Note that I did not receive a contract from the debt relief agency, ESP Solutions (so I was led to believe that they were a debt relief agency, only to find out they developed the accounting software) but rather got a welcome package that contained information such as my online ID, some basic instructions as to how to go about using their legal counsel to assist with this debt consolidation, matters concerning sending letters to the creditors to cease and desist calls or collection attempts, as I was part of a debt consolidation program.
Now here comes the not too fun part. Just about 2 months ago, I got a summons taped to my front door. Seeing this, I panicked and immediately called my friend. Within 2 days, he came over to my house to review the summons and he said that he would take this to the debt agency. As he was working on my behalf, I trusted that the summons would be taken care of.
A month into the receipt of the Summons, there were perhaps two calls made the debt agency to the creditor, trying to work out a debt. The best negotiations made ended up with a balance due that was more than the balance I owed.
A few weeks went by, and there were no re-negotiations between the agency and the creditor. At this point I told my friend that the matter will become serious as many actions can be taken based upon the summons, such as garnishments of salary, hold on assets and funding belong to me.
I had at this point no choice but to negotiate myself with the creditor and put a hold on the summons, by making monthly payments, and then making a settlement offer when I have enough funds secure. At least this put me out of the judgment route.
The next step I took was to have a meeting with the creditor- this would be the first time I would meet face to face with a real person. My friend went with me. When we got there, I told the debt representative that I wanted to cancel and get a refund back on the amount that was supposedly kept in a trust fund with Noteworld. He said that he would gladly cancel the contract, but that I needed to contact the debt relief agency to get the refund back. My question to him was “Are you not the debt relief agency? Do you not work with ESP Solutions?” He said that he only sold the ESP software and that was the extent of his involvement.
I asked for the contract that I supposedly signed. He printed out the contract (note that this is the first time I’m seeing the contract) and the paper listed my friend as the counselor and software agent. The header of the contract showed “Credit Care Corp.” When I saw this, I asked him “Are you not Credit Care Corp?” He said, “Yes I am, but I sell software only?”
I asked “Did you not withdraw money from the Noteworld account” He said “No, the major portion of the monthly payment was taken by P&E solutions and some went to FBL Associates”. The conversation went sour, as I insisted on the refund and the debt agent kept on denying that he withdrew any money from the escrow account. Before this first sit down, I prepared all the Noteworld account information. It turns out that out of $256 that I was paying monthly, about $191 went to “Admin fee” and other charges such as maintenance fees, origination fees also was taken from this monthly payment.
Now, a few months when I looked at my balance using the ESP software, it said that I paid around $1300 of which only $222 was going to the settlement amount. The debt representative had no idea about these figures and nor did my friend. I also called NoteWorld and asked them where my funds were allocated to. Their answer: P&E Solution. I asked them again, “Who is the local branch of P&E solutions”. Noteworld’s response: “Credit Care Corp.”- in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY. Of course it hit me that Credit Care was indeed taking the funds and I was being lied to directly at my face during the meeting with the rep. from Credit Care Corp.
I have already made three calls to the representative to get my refund. One of his excuses was that he is busy with clients or that he needs to pull my file and discuss commissions split with my friend, who when I told him this knew nothing about any commissions split.
At the end of the day, I lost $2348 (which includes a processing fee of $300) which I may never see again [note that this is higher than the amount according to the ESP software- the higher amount is based on banking statement showing this amount going to Noteworld, so somehow the remaining balance went somewhere, possibly to the debt consolidation company. However I will continue to make calls to Credit Care Corp and insist on my refund. And this demand for refund is based on the fact that this agency did not do what it was paid to do as well as misleading and mishandling my case to the creditor.
Here is the most important point to this whole fiasco. After reading many of the horror stories that client shave gone through, I noticed that company names that I dealt with such as NoteWorld, ESP Solutions, P&E Solutions, Credit Care Corp, Credit Care Pro are all taking the piece of the pie. All of these companies had a hand in my debt consolidation program.
One thing I did was to do some damage control: 1. called my bank from which these companies were indirectly taking from the Noteworld account and out stop payments not only on Noteworld, but all of the previously mentioned companies. 2. Created a new banking account. 3. I will file a complaint with BBB and any other government agencies that I ask if you can kindly provide me.
My Advice: Follow this entire process to get your best shot at a refund.
Thank You for providing such valuable insight and real life accounts and status of these suspicious companies that we all should be aware about. I hope this information as well as others that have provided similar information will put a stop to these misleading companies and bring some financial relief to us as clients.
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Hello Steve,
I just wanted to introduce myself to you, since you obviously know me and my situation. Since you love sharing stories, here is mine. I started working for Debt Center America in Feb 2009. I was just a sales agent, trained to sell debt settlement to struggling consumers. I worked my way up to Vice President of Operations. I personally trained at least 70 people on how to sell this product the right way. We had every conversation recorded, which was mentioned to every client(on the voice recording when they call).
When you sign for a house or a car, do you not read the contract? My job when I was managing the sales floor was to review( go over line by line) the contract with the client, so they understand what they are getting into. Do I think that the fee breakdown was fair? Not even close to fair, but it was in black and white in the contract and nobody made them sign it. Also, we never took a dime from any client. P & E solutions got most of the money and they paid us for our services. We were not at fault in any way. When I buy something and there is a contract, I read that contract 3 times.
Debt Center America was based in Ft Washington, PA. They had 14 branches across the tri state area and they have all shut down, because P & E Solutions went bankrupt and screwed a lot of people out of money and put them in a much worse situation. If the owners, agents or myself knew that this would have happened, nobody would have taken that job. P & E owes my old boss about $180,000.00. After they went out of business, we had to change our name, because we didn’t want to be associated with scumbags.
We changed our name to Professional Enrollment Services and our website was Enrollmentexperts.com. We used enrollment experts because some elderly consumers couldn’t understand professionalenrollmentservices.com.
That was also explained to every client. We also sent every client a contract that explained there was no refunds because they were paying for a service and we provided that service. We never once said that we were going to get someone a modification.
The unfortunate thing in this country is that when someone gets into trouble they always want to blame someone else. It’s the american way. Steve, as you know there are 3 sides to every story and that’s why I wrote this to you. I hope you post this and give my email address to whoever thinks I harmed them. I still receive calls from clients that were in ESP/P & E and they don’t hate me or blame me.
Most of the complainers are the ones that missed payments, when they were specifically told not to, because it would hurt their settlement. It’s not my fault if someone doesn’t follow the directions.
If you would like to hear the full story and it’s a good one, email me and we can set up an exclusive interview, with the now infamous Frank Rosenberg
I hate to be a little upset with this, but it’s ridiculous how someone can blame me or the company I worked for, for their mistakes. I ran a tight ship and made sure that we were as compliant as you can be. We had posters on our walls and flyers on every desk, with what you can and can’t say. Please do some research next time before you post this about a good guy.
Debt Center America
Do you like paying high interest rates? Do you feel overwhelmed my high balances on credit cards? We have the solution you need! PAY NO INTREST, CUT BALANCE IN HALF! CALL NOW!
Stop throwing away money. Stop paying interest! Cut your unsecured debts in half! Call us now 866-329-8390 x 1679http://www.facebook.com/pages/Debt-Center-America/105362716166502 YOU SOLD THIS AND YOURE PROUD OF IT????
Hello David,
That was the old owner of the company that wrote that. I haven’t worked there in 2 years. Nobody said I was proud of it. I did my job and did it well. I was the most compliant person on the floor and I made sure the whole floor was as well. I can’t make clients follow instructions and pay their bills. Where are all of the clients that I denied and told to go bankrupt?
Like I said before, most people love blaming someone else for their mistakes. Did I tell a client to take out 35 credit cards, when they make $500.00 a week? No i didn’t. Did I tell someone to go into a debt program, with $20,000.00 in debt and go into a 48 month program? Not even close. I explained exactly what would happen if they didn’t follow the rules and now they want to blame me? Please have every client email if there is an issue. I’m sure that when I speak to them, they will recall our exact conversation.
This is the problem with most debt relief sales people. Who gives a flying crap about compliance when you are completely ignorant of the fact that the program you are selling is not going to do what you tell the consumer it will do.
Gee Mr. Jones, I am sorry to hear that the program I sold you took you for 5,000 dollars and got you sued. Even though I was not qualified to explain to you that this program was not a good fit for you, you should take great comfort in knowing that I was in full compliance and made the required disclosures while I was screwing you out of that 5,000.
Have a great day, oh, and tell the bankruptcy attorney I said hello.
Gimme a break Frank.
Come on Frank,
Did you really just say…
Do I think that the fee breakdown was fair? Not even close to fair, but it was in black and white in the contract and nobody made them sign it.
Does the fact that you were able to convince desperate consumers to agree to the scam provide you the justification you need to help you sleep at night?
Hey Damon,
I never convinced anyone to do this. In the contract it also read that if you went into a long payment schedule, like a 48 month payment plan, that you would take a major risk of being sued. It certainly doesn’t help me sleep at night, because I already get a good night sleep.
All I did was explain the pros ad cons of the program. We were the front end of the company. We never negotiated the debt or took payments.
Damon, I wish I knew that the company these clients were signing up with was going to eventually screw everyone, but I didn’t. I wouldn’t have wasted a couple years of my life. You can call me names and say what you want. I gave every single client the best advice for their situation. The clients were the ones that made the choices/decisions.
Can you also explain to me how debt resolution is a scam? There are definitely companies out there that have scammed everybody, but that’s not every company. How can you put every debt resolution company in the same boat?
You never convinced anyone to sign up in your program? You were the sales guy correct? Isn’t that what selling is? Convincing someone to buy what you are selling?
You can justify it all you want, but blaming your victims for following your advice isn’t exactly taking responsibility for the pain you have caused to your clients.
Is it not your fault that you sold something that you admit you did not understand? Why is it not your obligation to fully understand the program that you are advising people to sign up into?
How can you claim you gave every single client the best advice for their situation and in the same paragraph claim that you didn’t know that everyone was getting screwed by following your advice? How is it that you are even remotely qualified to offer any financial advice if you couldn’t figure out what this debt settlement company was doing to consumers?
So let me see if I can somehow follow your logic.
You gave everyone you spoke with the best advice. However, that advice was to sign up into a program that took their money and didn’t resolve their problem. However, you didn’t force or convince them to sign up. So it is the consumers fault for listening to someone who clearly didn’t have a clue about what they were selling. Therefore you take no personal responsibility for the consumers you personally screwed over for the past few years because you were completely ignorant of what you were selling.
Is that about right?
I never said debt resolution is a scam. I said what you were selling was a scam based on how you described it.
A service was never provided, Frank! You just took your client’s money and did not do anything.
Frank is an uneducated low level crook. Check out his arrest record with the municipal court of philadelphia county. In 2005, he was on quite a roll!
I’ve heard similar stories like that…sad to say those people who are seeking debt settlements really needs help and what is happening debt settlement companies adds up to the problem. Today, there are many misleading advertisements of companies that are tricky. Looking for the right < a href=http://www.creditdebtsettlemen…“>debt settlement company to entrust your future needs time finding an ideal one.
My story is very similar; minus the lawsuit, friend, and company that enrolled me into this nightmare. This company changes its name every few months. When I enrolled it was Debt Center America, then Enrollment Experts and now they are Professional Enrollment Services. Vice President, Frank Rosenberg, refused to give me a refund. Two days ago, Mr. Rosenberg called me after receiving a letter requesting a full refund due to no services being provided. He told me P&E Solutions (ESP) were shutting down and that he has know this since October. The conversation eventually got heated and after 45 minutes he informs me he had recorded our phone phone conversation (with out my consent); he said he could use against me in court to prove I was incompetent! I am now in the process of filing complaints as Steve suggested with Mr. Rosenberg’s company, P&E Solutions, and FBL Associates.
My story is very similar; minus the lawsuit, friend, and company that enrolled me into this nightmare. This company changes its name every few months. When I enrolled it was Debt Center America, then Enrollment Experts and now they are Professional Enrollment Services. Vice President, Frank Rosenberg, refused to give me a refund. Two days ago, Mr. Rosenberg called me after receiving a letter requesting a full refund due to no services being provided. He told me P&E Solutions (ESP) were shutting down and that he has know this since October. The conversation eventually got heated and after 45 minutes he informs me he had recorded our phone phone conversation (with out my consent); he said he could use against me in court to prove I was incompetent! I am now in the process of filing complaints as Steve suggested with Mr. Rosenberg’s company, P&E Solutions, and FBL Associates.