Cca First National Membercard will scam you into joining then hassle you for trying to leave Las Vegas Nevada

San Francisco Chronicle: South San Francisco resident Michael Wisper was shocked when he opened his mail the other day. He'd received a pre-approved, no-interest credit card from something called CCA in Las Vegas. Capital Credit Alliance, Inc., 1050 E. Sahara Ave. #402, Las Vegas, NV 89104

"I don't know who these people are and never requested this card," Wisper told me, and he asked if I knew anything about the issuer.

I didn't. But after some digging, I now know that CCA has ties to a former Nevada state senator who currently serves on the board of regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education, which oversees the University of Nevada.

I also know that CCA has had run-ins with the Federal Trade Commission and has a steady track record of consumer complaints.

"We've got stacks and stacks of complaints about this company," said Sylvia Campbell, president of the Better Business Bureau of Southern Nevada. "They're one of the top contenders on our list of companies that we wish would go someplace else."

Campbell said no fewer than 720 complaints about CCA, otherwise known as Capital Credit Alliance, have been received since 2003. Twenty complaints were submitted by consumers nationwide last month alone.

In May, the New York Consumer Protection Board issued a warning about CCA, which it said also goes by the name CCS, as in Consumer Credit Services.

"These cards appear to be no-interest credit cards, offering consumers a credit limit between $6,500 and $8,000," said Teresa Santiago, the board's executive director. "But you learn the truth in the fine print."

And that print is indeed fine.

Wisper's CCA mailing, which he shared with me, includes six pages of dense, virtually unreadable legalese that few consumers would want or be able to wade through.

But if you do, you discover that CCA's First National card isn't in fact a normal credit card in the sense that you can use it to make purchases anywhere you please.

Rather, the card can be used only to buy things from CCA's own catalog of merchandise, which the Better Business Bureau's Campbell said is similar to a Sears or JC Penney catalog but with more-expensive goods.

The card comes with a $199.99 activation fee, which will be deducted from your checking account if you don't cancel the card within two weeks of calling to activate it via an automated process.

There's also an annual fee of $198 the first year and $99 for all subsequent years, and what the contract says are "2 great annual benefits" costing $99.99 each.

One great annual benefit allows cardholders to defer payments for up to six months if they lose their jobs or are permanently disabled. The other allows payments to be waived for items that are stolen within 30 days of purchase.

These benefits are so great that CCA says it will automatically bill you for them unless you notify the company in writing that you don't want them.

"People get into this and don't realize the costs involved," Campbell said.

And it gets worse. The contract stipulates that any dispute must be resolved by binding arbitration or in small claims court. Cardholders waive the right to a jury trial and can't be part of any class action lawsuits.

The contract specifies that CCA's First National card "is not a credit card but is instead a membership card allowing you to shop directly with us without financing your purchases."

Cardholders are required to make a 30 percent down payment for all purchases and to pay shipping and handling charges. Outstanding balances that aren't paid will be reported to credit bureaus and collection agencies.

On top of everything else, CCA's privacy policy says the company "may disclose all of the information that we collect" -- including your name, address and Social Security Number -- to "nonfinancial companies such as retailers, direct marketers and publishers."

So who are these guys?

I reached Stuart Honig, CCA's chief financial officer, at the company's Las Vegas office and identified myself as a writer for this newspaper.

"We don't do interviews," he said.

I asked why this was, and Honig said the press can't be trusted to get the facts straight. And then he hung up.

According to Nevada public records, CCA is run by W. Shane Kelly, who is listed as the company's president, secretary, treasurer and director.

In 2000, William Shane Kelly agreed to pay $150,000 to settle charges from the FTC that he'd engaged in deceptive business practices.

The FTC said Kelly was part of a Las Vegas operation that led consumers to believe they were receiving a line of credit but in reality were being required to buy goods from a catalog. Between 1996 and 1999, more than $12 million in fees reportedly were collected from 80,000 consumers.

"These credit cons are especially contemptible," an FTC official said at the time. "The FTC will not tolerate such blatant illegal activity by any lender."

One of the companies involved in the operation was identified by the FTC as Continental Direct Services, or CDS. According to Nevada records, the president of CDS at this time was Jack Lund Schofield, who served as a Nevada state assemblyman from 1970 to 1974 and as a state senator from 1974 to 1978.

Schofield ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1978 and subsequently became an educator, including a stint as science teacher at Southern Nevada Vocational Technical Center, also known as Vo-Tech High School. He has served on the Nevada System of Higher Education's Board of Regents since 2002.

Reached by phone, Schofield, 83, told me that Kelly had been his student at Vo-Tech. "He was one of the finest young men I ever met," Schofield recalled.

In 1999, he said, Kelly was having business troubles. "He asked me if I would come in and help them correct a situation," Schofield said. "They were having issues with the FTC."

He said he agreed to become president of Kelly's company, CDS, but stressed that Kelly "was the actual owner."

Schofield said the FTC misrepresented CDS' activities in its settlement with the company. He said many customers' complaints about CDS were exaggerated.

"I saw that the company had great potential," Schofield said. "They're very successful today, thanks to some of my suggestions about what they should do. I take credit for guiding them along so they can do the right thing."

CDS changed its name to CCA in 2001, according to public records. Schofield declined to discuss the reason for the switch.

He described Kelly's business troubles as "an evolution of circumstances that he had no control over. As he got deeper into the concept, I explained to him that he has to give customers what he says he'll give customers."

Schofield declined to elaborate, observing only that "right now they're not having any FTC problems."

He said he stepped down as CCA's president in 2002. Kelly subsequently took over as president, records show.

Kelly couldn't be reached for comment at CCA's office.

The Better Business Bureau says it has received complaints about CCA from pretty much every state in the nation -- except the company's home state of Nevada. That's the one place CCA doesn't hawk its First National cards.

"It's so that they don't come to grief with the Nevada attorney general," the bureau's Campbell said.

She said complaints about CCA are received directly from consumers who know the company's Las Vegas address and also are passed along by other bureau offices throughout the country.

Aaron Carruthers, a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said no complaints have been received to date about CCA.

"It sounds like these guys skate on a thin line of legality," he said. "If anyone has a problem, they should contact us, and we'll take a look."

David Lazarus' column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.


"bbb report"
Better Business Bureau Serving Southern Nevada
2301 Palomino Lane
Las Vegas, NV 89107
(702) 320-4500
Fax: (702) 320-4560
info@vegasbbb.org

BBB Reliability Report

Capital Credit Alliance, Inc.
1050 E. Sahara Ave. #402
Las Vegas, NV 89104


General Information

Original Business Start Date: August 1997
Type of Entity: Corporation
Principal : William Kelly President
Customer Contact: Dara Young
Phone Number: (702) 734-5500
BBB Membership: This company is not a member
Type-of-Business Classification: Mail Order & Catalog Shopping


Customer Experience

Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record with the Bureau due to the company's failure to eliminate the underlying cause of consumer dissatisfaction.

When considering complaint information, please take into account the company's size and volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm's responses to them are often more important than the number of complaints.

The Bureau processed a total of 677 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period. Of the total of 677 complaints closed in 36 months, 180 were closed in the last year.

These complaints concerned:

429 Contract Issues
179 Billing or Collection Issues
12 Delivery Issues
18 Service Issues
20 Sales Practice Issues
8 Refund or Exchange Issues
9 Advertising Issues
1 Guarantee or Warranty Issues
1 Product Issues


They were closed as:

628 Resolved
12 Unresolved
29 Administratively Closed
8 No Response



Additional Information

Additional Doing-Business-As Names: CCA
CDS
Classic Members (CCA)
CMM (Previous DBA)
Consumer Money Markets (Previous DBA)
Continental Direct Services
Credit Service Division
American Credit Company (CCA)
Additional Addresses: P.O. Box 46101, Las Vegas, NV 89114
Additional Phone Numbers: 702-260-8333
702-697-5278
702-697-5280
702-733-9400
702-734-1212
800-227-7056
800-636-0076
800-642-1760
702-734-2184
702-732-3694



Additional File Information

Capital Credit Alliance is a mail order company which offers to sell consumers a "membership" card. Membership allows the consumer to purchase products through the Capital Credit Alliance shopping network.
The Bureau was sent the company's catalog, which was published and issued in September, 2001. The Bureau compared the company's catalog products and pricing to other similar catalogs. The findings of the Bureau are that there are very few name brand products in the company's catalog and the pricing of the products is more costly than can be purchased from other like vendors.

According to literature sent to consumers by the company, a consumer must call for membership acceptance; there are no additional fees or costs for receiving the MONEYFIRST CARD other than a membership fee; a maximum amount will be available to purchase items from the catalog once the new "credit card is assigned;" the credit card number may change once assigned; and cash on demand is a loan-free deferred-deposit service giving members access to immediate cash.

Consumers should note that correspondence from the company's representative, Mr. Gary Allen, has indicated that "membership and/or association fees are NOT REFUNDABLE, and that these transactions are final upon accepting membership." THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU WARNS CONSUMERS TO READ AND UNDERSTAND ANY CONTRACT BEFORE SIGNING IT. CONSUMERS SHOULD USE EXTREME CAUTION BEFORE GIVING FINANCIAL INFORMATION TO ANY COMPANY WHICH IS NOT KNOWN TO THEM. AN EXAMPLE OF SUCH INFORMATION IS THE CONSUMER'S BANK ACCOUNT OR CREDIT CARD NUMBER, DATE OF BIRTH, AND/OR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER.

The Bureau has received correspondence that Capital Credit Alliance, Inc. solicits a card with the logo, "First National Membercard" and the consumer is pre-approved for a $6,500 unsecured credit line, authorized for Capital Credit Alliance, Inc.'s catalog purchases only. The information accompanying the card indicates there is a $200 activation fee and $99 annual fee. The company only leaves a P.O. Box to be contacted at, also the information requests that the consumer call an 800 number to activate the card and all of the charges would be debited from the consumer's checking/savings account.

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Most attractive feature: none
Least attractive feature: everything

If it were made very difficult to cancel the card, i.e. you were strongly discouraged, then the company is not reputable. And if the card can only be used for the issuing companie's sales catalogue then the card is not reputable as a CC.

I think the OP would be better served by putting all of his CC in his freezer and then pay all CC balances off as quickly as possible. CC "balance consolidation" is an illusion and a trap- nothing more.

OP would do well to read Consumer Reports and the CR Money Advisor about CC.

I agree, the name as I typed it in the Title of this note, may be considered misleading.

I recieved today what I assume is the same offer from CCA First National Card, for even the same credit limit amount of $6500. I read thru the paperwork, even the fine print and found that they ecplained exactly what they were offering in the body of the letter. It even clearly states. "Once processed for CASH on-Demand**, you can get Cash On-Demand at anytime..." asterisk, asterisk... HELLO, they even call it to your attention that you need to read this part... forget the fact that it clearly states you must be processed for Cash On-Demand... once reading the fine print... you get all the details...

Maybe they change the print since the prior user who defamed this company, posted their "scam"...

As a small business owner, I hate to see misinformation harm a company trying to offer a service for a fee... maybe some think it's a bad service... those people should consider themselves lucky they CAN think its a bad service... to some people though, this company is assisting them to reach higher financial hopes!!

I really should work for this company!!!