First House Financial Charged me a monthly fee of $9.95 without my knowledge, never sent any information, terrible customer service, etc etc. Santa Cruz, California

I was looking for housing in a new area, and saw a listing but could not view it without speaking with First House Financial.  When I spoke with the representative she told me that they would need to charge me a one-time fee of $1.00 to view the listing information.

Needless to say, I received nothing via mail or e-mail regarding the listing.  Not only that, my credit card was being charged $9.95 per month with an automatic renew.  When I first found this out, I tried to contact them and nobody would answer the phone, they just quickly hung up on me.  Then I tried to contact my bank to let them know, the only thing my bank said is if they charge me again they will notify me immediately.

You guessed it, they charged me again this month the same $9.95 per month for a service I never received or agreed upon.  All I wanted was to view a single listing.

When I tried calling back this time, I spoke with Samantha in Customer Service.  She was extremely rude, and at one point asked me very rudely, "Sir, do you want to cancel your service or not?"  I was shocked!  Not only was I trying to get to the bottom of what was going on, she wanted nothing to do with me and did not want to help.  

After she hung up on me, I called her back and got her after waiting on hold for 25 minutes.  She said there was a $5.00 cancellation fee.  I was upside myself when I heard that and told her the situation that I had gone through, she didn't care and told me everything is non-refundable.  Yet again, I never received any information, nothing, just got charged the following:

$1.00 to (supposedly) see the listing
$9.95 per month for 2 months for ????  Nothing!
$5.00 to cancel (to cancel me paying them more money)  

From top to bottom this company is a scam, I'm out about $25.00 which isn't the big deal, it's the principal, and now that I've reported them it feels a little better.