A2Z Offsite A2Z Demands We Pay For Service We Never Asked For Internet

 I work at a church.  We received a bill from A2Z Offsite, indicating that we owed them $99.90 for an offsite computer backup service we had ordered.  We had never ordered such a service and had never spoken with A2Z about getting such a service.

We got repeated bills (which looked authentic) and repeated phone calls from "Sandy" at A2Z warning us of legal action if we did not pay and so I did some research.  I was amazed to find that A2Z Offsite, according to the Better Business Bureau of Wisconsin, was the subject of twenty-seven complaints from businesses lcoated in fourteen different states.  Apparently A2Z Offsite was accused of billing people for services they did not order.  Once they paid the bill A2Z would simply disappear with the money.

I told A2Z the next time they called (they had called to threaten us that our account was being turned over to collection) that we would not pay and gave the reasons why.  They hung up on me.

Nationwide Recovery Systems, a collections agency, called and said we now owed $539.46.  He was trying to "help us" so that the case wouldn't be taken to court.  I told him he needed to produce proof of a contract.  He said there was a verbal contract, and played a recording supposedly made in December 2012. 

It was a recording of one of our staff members interacting with an automated voice.  However, the recording was made a year earlier when the staff member was speaking not with a automated voice but with a real person.  There was also a gross error in the verbal contract which clearly indicated it was faked.

I told the collection agency that for us to pay this amount is ludicrous, that the recording was faked, and read off the list of complaints filed against A2Z.  I warned him that if Nationwide Recovery Systems was indeed a legitimate collection agency then they probably didn't want have anything to do with A2Z Offsite.  The man on the phone said he would report it to his superiors.

On May 6 I made a few phone calls warning all local churches here in Boston about the scam (A2Z tends to target churches).

The next day, May 7, I received a letter from Nationwide Recovery Systems (the collection agency) indicating that they are "no longer doing any collections work for A2Z Offsite or for any of its affiliates."  They also apologized for any inconvenience the letters may have caused.  The letter was signed by Dennis Dlabaj, the Vice President of the collection agency.