Consumer Financial Advisory Board This is one very slick scam!!!! Clearwater Florida

I am a previous employee, and would like to shed some light as to what really goes on at this company for those people who have expressed concern.

I was called a "fronter" , which means I made outbound calls from an automatic dialer. My objective was to get a credit card number from the prospective client, literally my any means possible. The intention was to get the card number, and then get a "closer" on the phone to put high pressure tactics on the prospective client. It was a very arduous task,and I felt very uncomfortable , because I did not trust the company because they were very secretive about what was going on. At one point, the company changed hands, and then became known as Consumer Financial Advisory Board, but had previously been called Financial Freedom Resources.

We had to read a script, and yet later on was told by one of the managers that the script could be read differently to imply different things. Basically the company was not going to steal anyone's credit card, or commit identity theft. The motive in telling the person on the other end of the phone, that they needed to be qualified for the program was an outright lie. They simply wanted to find out whether or not there were enough funds on the credit card in order to cover the fee that they were going to charge the customer almost immediately. The fee could be anywhere from & 795.00 up to $1500.00, structured differently for different customers and sometimes in a 2 part payment plan. The point is is that it was an outrageous fee to try and lower someone's interest rates.

Previously I had heard that the so called "financial consultants" were actually pretending to be the credit card customer's themselves calling the banks and acting as they were the customers and asking to have rates lowered. This had been confirmed by several sources. Later on they changed it to the consultants conferencing in with the customers and the banks. They were offering a service that basically was something that people easily could do on their own. Also as part of the script the closers had, they would tell the people on the phone that " a lot of people had to send a check or money order in" which was not ever the case, but it was said to make these people not really understand that their credit cards were going to be billed immediately. They were told that the fee would come out of the money that they were saving. It was explained in such a convoluted way that many people were under the impression that somehow an outrageous amount of money such as $5000.oo would be saved within 30 days, so the fee would be deducted from the the savings. However that was really based on being shown paper work in 30 days,and then whatever savings that could get by getting the interest rates would be by paying their cards monthly with minimum payments, and could take years for the savings to be "absorbed". Meanwhile their card had just been charged up anywhere formn $775.00 to $995.00, and the closer would somehow convince them that this was a good thing because they would still come out ahead of the game. I never felt comfortable and only stayed there for a few months, because of not being able to get a better job.

The pay was ridiculously low unless one could make commission which very few did, and no matter what, the owner was making a fortune , and they also made lots of promises to the clients that they would get their money back, no questions asked, but they made it very difficult for that to happen. The verification recording was not for the protection of the customer , but rather for the company, so that they could state the customer agreed to the terms and conditons. A lot of people went along with it sometimes very clearly sounding confused and sort of bullied into it.

In addition the company was being presented as this financial institution. It was in a filty building with moldy torn carpet, filthy dirty vents on the ceiling where people were constantly getting sick from the mold. In additions basics such as phones and computers were broken, old, and for the most part barely functional.We had to scream into the phone, and they played outrageously loud music as if we were in a nightclub rather than a place of business, in order to keep the "energy of the room upbeat"

I would strongly caution anyone looking to lower their interest rates to do it on their own, and not use this service which although is not an outright scam is ridiculously overpriced, and certainly not worth a price at all, let alone the trickery involved in trying to get someone to enroll is outrageous.

There was also a long speech given to customers about the reasoning that the banks were willing to work with "us" as a customer retention program which made no sense. If the credit card companies wanted to lower their customer's rates why would they need a third party to do so.

It was a very confused, and poorly run organization, and yet they made tons of money basically preying on the vulnerbilites of people who were upright in terms of paying their debt, but basically either confused or elderly. People who had sort of sophistication or business savvy were immediately aware that this not really a legitimate program.

I am remaining anonymous because I live in the area, and do not want to suffer any repercussions. If you look at the website, you will also note there are no principals, owners listed. Usually a legitimate company offers names of owners, CEO's etc. Yet we had to give our full names on the calls, just as I know the names of the people who were mentioned. I think that it is wrong to blame the employees, they are doing they are told to do.