I had been loooking hard for a work at home job and was contacted by Emerald-Bridge to be a low level accountant, getting 10% of profits as a reseller of internet advertising. I did not pay anything to the company for start-up costs, so I believed it to be legitimate employment. I set up a legitimate business with both a business account and a merchant services account with Authorize.net. The entire process took several months to complete so I felt confident that there was no scam involved. I felt even more comfortable, since I was using a trusted internet merchant services provider; Authorize.net.
Once "sales" began, I started getting phone calls from people saying that their credit card was being used fraudulently. (I had entered my home phone number with merchant services instead of the supplied "customer service" number, in error.) When I contacted my supervisor, Christian Oksanen, regarding the phone calls reporting abuse of credit cards, his response was that we needed to get the phone number fixed and that further receipts should be sent to "customer service".
I then decided to randomly look up phone numbers for several "customers" to see if these calls were simply errors in the system or if there was any internet marketing service being sold. None of the charges were legitimate and none of these people had ever even heard of the company.
I immediately closed the merchant service gateway and filed both police and FBI internet crime report. However, I am still getting phone calls (still not one legitimate charge) and the customer service is just a mailbox that gets no response (even when contacted by the merchant services provider).
I'm certain that my identity has been stolen and I have been used to run a very large credit card scam. Now Emerald-Bridge is threatening me with legal action (via my e-mail, of course) and I'm out the $250 I spent to set up the business as well as another $250 to Authorize.net.
I have taken every step I know to protect my personal and banking information and when people call, I let them know that their card number has been stolen,but am very concerned that local police and FBI are too busy to adequately investigate the fraud.
Is there anyone out there that can advise about what I should do next? All money was immediately returned to Authorize.net, I never transferred any of it to either my personal account or to Emerald-Bridge.
Mule
Anywhere, Utah
U.S.A.
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