Lloyd Ward & Associates – Consumer Complaint – 10-18-2011

Date This Problem Happened: February 24, 2010

State You Live in: New Jersey

Age Range: 36-50

Total Amount of Fee Paid:

Company Name: Lloyd Ward & Associates

Company Address:

12655 North Central Expressway Ste. 800
Dallas, TX 75243

Website of Company:

bestdebtoptions.com (Not currently online.)

lloydwardlawfirm.com (From customer service email address.)

Consumer Statement:

My name is Eli, and around Febuary 2010 my parents asked me to find a debt settlement company. My dad is 75 years old, and my mom is 65 years old, and their English isn’t that good because they are Greek; so I Googled debt settlement companies, and I chose Lloyd Ward & Associates, because they tol me that they have a working relationship with all of my parents creditors, and they would settle with all of them at a 40% savings.

They told us that they would have to deposit $411.85 a month for 36 months, and after the end of the 36 months that they would settle with them. After I told my parents what LaShunda Allen ” Initial Lloyd Ward Rep ” told me they agreed to use Lloyd Ward & Associates.

We first noticed a problem on August 25th, 2010 when Chase Bank filed a law suit for the Chase Credit card debt. When I called Lloyd Ward up to ask them about this; they told me that this rarely happens, and they couldn’t control it. I then asked them about the working relationship that they have with them, and we were under the impression that being that they have a working relationship with them that Lloyd would of informed them that my parents entered their program.

I found out that Lloyd Ward never even informed my parents creditors that they entered their debt settlement program; so I told them to send all of my parents creditors a certified letter informing them that they were in their program.

The scam here I believe is that they instruct their sales reps to tell their potential clients what they want to hear to get them to sign up with them. My parents were very upset about this situation,, and I felt responsible because I found this company for them.

We settled with Chase outside of the program, because after paying $411.85 from Feb 2010 to Aug 2010 that all of these payments were taken by Lloyd Ward as $366.85 Activate Fee, $45 Maint. Fee. There was nothing in the escrow account to settle with Chase.

Even after this happened my parents stayed with Lloyd Ward, because of the contactual agreement that they had with them, and they told my parents that this was a rare occurance. We believed this being so, and we stayed wityh them.

Since that intial lawsuit there were several more lawsuits that arrived, and after numerous attempts to contact them to only get voice mail with no response.

In Febuary 2011 my parents told me to tell Lloyd Ward & Associates that they wanted to use their home equity line to settle with all of the creditors as was assured by LaShunda Allen at a 40% savings. We were told by numerous Lloyd Ward reps that they would honor the contractual agreement, and settle with the remaining creditors.

After several weeks of not hearing back from them; I continued to call to again only get voice mail; Only after I mentioned that I was going to report them to the various agencies that were mentioned in Steve’s Website did I get a response, and I was assigned a different negotiator who was supposed to be their best negotiator.

I was told that we were going to have all the settlements by the end of the month, because that was the best time to negotiate with them. We were told this for months, before we got fed up, and we sent them an email requesting a refund of the money that they took from my parents or that we were going to file complaints with the Attorney General Office of dallas, the BBB, Consumer Affairs, and the Federal Trade commission.

That’s when John Brutsche from their Customer Relations department called us, and told us that he was sorry for whats was happening, and that he was going to ask his committee about getting a refund for my parents.

He told me that he was going to give me their dessision in a few days. After a few weeks of not hearing back from him; we decided to hire a bankruptcy attorney Barry Levine who told us to stop the monthly payments to them, because they were crooks who take advan tage of older nieve people who tell them what they want to hear to get them to sign up with them.

A couple of weeks after we stopped the monthly payments John Brutsche sent me an email stating that because we stopped the monthly payments that we breached the contract, and that by doing so that Lloyd Ward & Associates was not obligated to giving my parents a refund. I feel responsible for this happening to my parents, and I was hoping if you could help us even if we don’t get a dime back I want to make sure that Lloyd Ward doesn’t keep doing this to other nieve older people.

Thanks for reading this, and I hope that you can help us.

Eli

Do You Have a Question You'd Like Steve to Answer? Click Here.

Note:

I believe the information on this site that Eli is referring to is this article about how to seek a refund from any debt relief company that has not provided you with the service you believe they should have.

Steve Statement

On November 22, 2011 we sent a letter to the company at the address given by the consumer and asked them to publicly respond to this complaint.

Sincerely,


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