First National Card - CCS ripoff They took my money and ran!! Las Vegas Nevada

I am an ex employee of this company, so I know first hand how they can be seen as a rip off. Let me start by saying that when you call the 800 number to activate this card they send you, you are speaking with someone who was hired (like myself) to read a script.

The scripts include all the information about all charges and fees associated with membership, and are written by lawyers. They do temd to be unlcearly written, and are read fairly fast.

Reason : we as employees were pressured every day to get you, the unexpecting customer to give us your bank information. When you give us your account number, it is called a "deal". We as operators were required to get 2 deals per hour or we were put onto a 30 day probation, so you are not alone if you got ripped off. We did not care whether or not you understood everything we just said, because we know that you wont bother to listen, we just want your numbers. Once we got to the point in the call you may remenber, when we ask you seven questions and ask you to answer either yes or no, we want you to say yes seven times so that we can keep our jobs. The company uses something called an electronic signature code, once we ask you for those numbers on the back of your approval letter and you give them to us, you have now binded yourself to our contract. Let me explain what this contract actually is, if it is still the same since I worked there. You have received the cards from us, along with an approval letter because your name was taken from a list of people that were turned down for some sort of credit application. You can request to be removed from our list, but not the list we got your name from. The approval letter will say that you are approved for a 6,500 credit line. And that we will offer a free two week trial period. Please understand that this may not actually be for two weeks.

If you call and request to activate the card you will be automatically signed up for the free trail, but depending on what day of the week you called, they may take up to 5 days away from the trial. They will give you a date that you must cancel by at the end of the call if you want to avoid being charged the membership fee, this date will always be on a Friday. Please note that you must actually cancel on the Tuesday prior to the suggested date. Why? Because they will tell you that the fee has already been submitted into the debit cycle if you call on the date they give you. They will say that this is because it can take up to 3 days for them to get their money. And this is just one of the secrets I am willing to tell you guys.

I know this is alot to read, but I want to help those of you that are reading this to see if you should activate this card. Anyway, the "free trial" consists of them sending you the cards, and the contracts, and the preview brochure, which is just a peice pf paper with a few pictures of the products they offer. Alot of times I would see the trial expire before the customer received even this small amount of info. If you have not receive d the "trail package" within a week, call them and demand that they send another. If you decide this is something you would like to try, you will be billed $200 for the membership fee the first month, $99 + $29 for the annual fee, and the rush processing fee that they will most likely talk you into the second month, and if you havent written them a letter telling them that you do not want their benefits they offer with the cards, they will charge you $99.99 twice in the third month because there are two of them. Please note that you cannot call and say that you want them to cancel the benefits which they have automatically signed you up for at this point, you must send a letter in writing, and follow up, make sure you call and ask if they have received the letter. So, three months into the membership and you have already been charged $523.98!

Now, they do "offset" the $99 annual fee, and the $200.00 member fee by giving you a voucher. The one they give you for $200 must be used for an order that equald $500 or more, and the $99 voucher must be used on an order $200 or more. Plus dont forget, you must pay 30% down on all orders plus shipping before they will be shipped out. Dont be fooled by the "offset" word, this does not mean refund! Now lets get to the cash On demand. This is a payday loan card, sort of.

You must fax over a copy of your ID, a utilty bill as a proof of address, and 3 recent paycheck stubs beofre this card is even ready to be used. You cannot use it at an ATM ( alot of customers were under this immpression ) and your starting limit will be $50. All loans must be paid in full within I think its 10 or 30 days---its been a while since I had to read the script--- and believe it or not I think the terms of this card actually get better the more you use it. Your loan terms will increase up to 90 days, and your limit will also increase slowly but surely. One thing this company advertises that is actually true : both cards are interest free, make that two things, they actually do report to all three credit bureaus---duh! all cards do that! wake up people. Your minimum monthy payments for the card works like this. 10 percent or $50 whichever is greater for all catalog purchases, and the minimum will be $200 if you have any outstanding fees!

Now, this card would be great for you if you have the $500 + to spend to activate the membership because you can find some great furniture items in the catalog, and it does help to restore credit. Just know what you are getting into. Here are a few more tricks. If you are one of the many that were surprised to find $200 missing from your account, the first step would be to call the 800 number on the back of the card we sent you. Once they have asked you for all of you info, including your name, phone number, ssn, and address, they will finally address your concern. If they advise you that your money has already been entered into the debit cycle, please do not freak out. At this point there is nothing you or your bank, or your lawyer, or the bbb, or the police can do. You have submitted an electronic signature code, you have bound your self to our terms. Furtermore, I know you will be angry, but please dont take it out on the person that answers the phone. Those people have to listen to their managers bark out demands all day, thay are paid 7.00 dollars an hour, sometimes even 5.15 an hour, and they are just as miserable and frustrated with the company as you are, furthermore, they cant help you either.

Demand to speak with a superviser , they can make you better offers, They can split the membership fee for you if it comes back non sufficient funds , offer vouchers for which you can receive free merchandise without having to pay a down payment , and even waive the rush processing fee. you will be on hold for quite a while, but if you really want to do business with this company, speaking with a supervisor will save you alot, alot, alot of money. Furthermore, if you demand a refund they will say " all fees are non refundable" which is true, however, on some occasions, I have seen refunds issued. This will usually only happen when a customer makes lawyer or bbb threats, at which time the rep would need to submit your order to our "quality control" department. Once an order is submitted to this department all calls that were recorded will be listened to, and alot of times a new rep did not explain or answer a question correctly, which can be seen as giving the customer incorrect information. In these instances the department will issue a refund, or give away hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise to prevent being sued.

Please note that it will not help to call and say that you were lied to, as you may remember a certain discalimer written at the beginning of wevery script " all calls may be monitored or recorded for qualty control " this can work for you or against you. I am writing this to help all of thiose who are thinking of activating this card, now at least you have the facts written in plain english for you.

If and whne you call to activate tis card, please listen to everything the operator says, she is reading from a script, but it will include all of the information above, and more. They explain everything to the customers, they just know that most of the time, people arent listening. Oh yea and by the way, if you know they are trying to hit your bank account, do not just withdraw all funds and ignore it, there are two debit cycles a month, which is when they attempt to withdraw the funds, and they can attempt to withdraw the funds up to six times per billing cycle, This means for every month that you owe them anything, they can attempt to withdraw the funds six times! Thats alot of NSF fees which will not be refunded. They will also send your account to a collection agency if you do not pay them .