Value Max review: Unauthorized charges to my checking account 127

CAUTION THEY ALSO SELL PRODUCTS ON AMAZON I BOUGHT A TV MOUNT FROM THEM THEY E MAILED ME AND TOLD ME THAT THE PRICE WAS WRONG SO THEY WOULD HAVE TO CANCELL MY ORDER AND I WOULD NOT BE CHARGED GOOD THING I CHECKED MY BANK ACCOUNT THE NEXT DAY THEY CHARGED ME FROM WHAT I SEE THIS COMPANY NEEDS TO BE SHUT DOWN HEY IF YOU ARE READING THIS AND WORK FOR THE IRS AUDIT THERE [censor]

WHAT A BUCH OF RUDE PEOPLE.. OF COURSE IF I WORKED AT A COMPANY THAT SCAMMED PEOPLE I WOULD BE RUDE TO.. KEITH IN LACK OF CUSTOMER SERVICE CLAIMED HE WAS A LAWYER.. I AM A LAWYER ALSO-I GRADUATED FROM THE SAME LEGAL COLLEGE.. WHAT A JOKE! HE WAS THE RUDEOUS PERSON EVER.. HE SAID HE WAS AS HIGH UP IN THE COMPANY I COULD TALK TO-SO HE IS CEO/PRESIDENT AND A LAYWER-I WONDER WHAT COLOR THE SKY IS IN HIS WORLD... I CALLED A CREDIT ADAPTER COMPANY-SAME COMPANY AND THEY WILL REVIEW MY CHARGE AND OH LET ME KNOW IN 7 BUSINESS DAYS.. I WILL REPORT TO MY BANK FOR FULL REFUND-THEY ALREADY SAID THEY WILL DO IT-THEY ASKED THAT I CALL FIRST AND SEE WHAT THEY OFFER ME. AS ABOVE BANKS ARE SICK OF THIS COMPANY AND ITS WORKING TO THE LEVEL WHERE THEY WON'T BE ABLE TO USE VISA CARD CHARGES. IT USES UP BANKS TIME TO DO ALL THESE REVERSE CHARGES. WHO REALLY IS THE PRESIDENT OF THIS GROUP OF RIPOFF COMPANIES? IF I FIND OUT-AND I WILL-I WILL POST IT WITH HOME ADDRESS AND PHONE NUMBER WHEN YOU CALL-BE NICE AT FIRST MAKING SURE YOU GET NAMES AND ID NUMBERS-ALSO WATCH YOUR CREDIT REPORTS-AS THESE KIND OF SCMMERS LOVE TO DO THAT WHEN THEY GET CAUGHT!

ValueMax is a company made up of the sub-humans for whom the word integrity is meaningless. Intellius is no different giving that they are collaborators in this scam alongside their partners in crime (Value Max). Their customer service reps sound respectable on the phone but they are really the skunks of the earth. I have been away on business and in that time have been charged for 18 months $29.95 each month for a service I only heard of today. ValueMax is going to refund their loot if its the last thing I do. Rats

I just encountered the same problem with this company as all of you mentioned previously! It is completely frustrating! I called the company ValueMax from my bank statement and got the lame reasoning of an idiot supervisor who seemed numb to the complaint as I am sure they have had to deal with it all day long. I have been charged $29.95 by ValueMax and $19.95 by Intelius every month fraudulently and I am beyond angry. There is no way this company will agree to the refund of this so called "membership" so I called my bank and had my card cancelled and filed a report and my bank has issued a credit of $119.75 to my account.
I followed that by making a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. And a nasty email expressing my hatred for the thieves at this company made me feel a LITTLE bit better.
Cancel your cards immediately! It seems that just calling them and asking to cancel your so-called membership isn't enough.

ValueMax is a scam. I am about to be refunded more than $800 because of fraudalent charges

I'm an idiot! They have been charging me for 3 years.
I spent $9.99 through Zaba Search and Intelius and have been robbed of thousands! It was up to $42.95 a month. The only way I learned about this is because I got my first EVER correspondence from them telling me that my bill would automatically go to $47.95 A MONTH if I didn't call the number on the letter within 30 days.
Where can I join, or start, a class action lawsuit?
They have been stealing from me for years!

They signed me up for services without my knowledge and in the course of 2 years have charged me over $700! It seems that these people are scam artists and a lot of people have been duped by them. Why is it that they are getting away with it and hard working people like us are being victimized?

How do I get my money back?

Just came back from the police station. I recived a bill in the mail notifying me of my "membership" to valuemax, when i called and tole them i never signed up for valuemax, they said someone from intelius had used my account etc.. also so a charge on there from us search, came home and googled this company a nd found everyone on here eho went through exactly the same thing! shut this compnay down!
Andy, New York.

I too became a victim of Value Max. I visited Intellius to try to search for a long, lost friend for my husband who is not in good health. The information Intellius provided was vague but I agreed to pay for their fee since they did provide some type of information for me to go on to continue my search. In the meantime, a pop up screen appeared for Value Max and although I declined, a week or so later I received a generic Presorted First Class Mail with a P.O. Box 5152, Des Plaines, IL return address with a letter advising me how pleased they were that I decided to save money with ValueMax. What a crock! I did not agree to anything!
After calling several times throughout the day to cancel, interestingly enough all the agents were always "busy" and the web site was not able to process my cancellation as it was being worked on.

I too became a victim of the scam.. i could'nt figure where those inauthorized charges was coming from and when i finally called my credit card company, they told me it was a company called Value Max that was charging me for something i was unware of.. I immedialtely called the company and canceled.. I also let them know i didnt i agree to any of thse charges.

Same thing happened to me a week ago, I went to use my card, but the credit company was already aware of it. The security had hot boxed my card for me, without my knowledge, I am thankful they did. Went to my bank and thankfully got the transactions halted before they could go through. They card was canceled, and I am getting a new one.

I am also a victim of VALUE MAX, no once but twice, this has been charged on my bank atm card, I only use this card for an emergency. I do not pay attention to the bank statement until this month, I have tried to no avail to get in contact with this company. I began to looked at my previous bank statement, there it was a charge for $19.95. I did not get any help from my bank. Can we get together and ask a tv station such as dateline to help us.

Same issues with Value Max. These people are scammers. I filled reports with Better Business Bureau;Attorney General in IL.They ar sneaky to say the least.

I too used Intellius for an unlisted phone number. I didnot accept any offer from Valuemax, and suddenly a letter came in the mail advising that my credit card would be charged $19.95 even though I hadnot authorized the billing. I called Valuemax, complained and they indicated they would cancel my "membership".

Katlin 640@aol.com

I have received a full refund from Value max

OH MY GOD, i just went into my bank account and notice a $19.95 charge from Value Max, I usually don't bother to see my statements, since I hardly purchase anything. I looked for more dates, and they had another charge last month. I too went into Intellius, and gave my credit card for a search of $1.95 - I will reporting this today to the Better Business Bureau, and will try to get this on the news, since I work for a National TV NETWORK.

i just looked at my statement tonight and found 2 charges to my account from value max but my statement listed a toll free # to them i called them to have this cancelled the first person said they could only refund the most recent charge so i demanded to speak with a supervisor the supervisor said they would refund all charges and i will see them refunded to my account in 3 to 5 days so lets see what happens i will let you know... the # is [protected] they are located in conneticut...my e-mail is stillphil1@yahoo.com

I too used intellius! This is bull crap! I am calling them on monday to get my money back! Can i get my money back? this is so not cool!

Just like the other complaints, I found two charges on my credit card bill for $24.95 each, two days apart. It had a toll free number with it so I called, the guy obviously got dozens of calls like mine per day - he sounded as if he was reading from a script. Like the other people, he agreed to cancel the first charge with little effort - after i pressed and demanded I talked to someone else, he transferred me to a manager that sounded just a excited to talk to me as the first one. Again, after just a little effort he agreed to reimburse both charges to my credit card. I too did a reverse phone search online and they claim there was a "big ole" (as he put it) disclaimer that I had to click or it wouldn't advance to the next screen. Look folks, I work at a bank, I am trained to watch the fine print on legal documents - it wasn't big, that's for darned sure. This is a scam, no other way about it.

This happened to me today. I had been on disability for the last 5 months, with ZERO money in my account, I get my first paycheck (finally got back to work) today and they had deducted $59.85 out of my account. I called immediately as the number was provided along with the debit amount on my statement. I spoke to a supervisor and she stated she canceled my account and my money would be debited back into my account within 3 days. The number I called is [protected]. I also checked the BBB, and both Intelius, who I did use for a $1.95 search ONE time back in April, and Valuemax both have F ratings. I filed complaints against both companies, however I doubt it will do much good. I strongly advise against using Intelius for any reason. Good luck!

Likewise, I join the string of complaints here against this "VALMAX" company that is CLEARLY using the pop-up mechanism to fraudulently charge consumers for a membership that was never approved. I called Citicards yesterday to advise them of the two unauthorized charges and what a shock! while I was still on the phone with Citicards, the rep received a confirmation that BOTH charges (one from Valmax and another from IDProtect Monitor Service) received an immediate credit confirmation via email from these companies. This morning, I noticed online that in my charges that have not yet been billed BOTH companies AGAIN have charged the same $19.95 amounts in the coming month - so, apparently, this is to be a MONTHLY occurrence! What fraud! The worst part of this is that although I never authorized either of these memberships, the responsibility is now on me to call and cancel these memberships directly with these clearly shady companies ... only in America!

Intellis is bascially a scam website and needs to be shut down by the FCC. They are conducting illegal and unauthorized credit card charges on anyone that signs up for their services. They are a info service and it's not worth it signing up with them no matter what info you need. They also have another side scam company called www.Valuemax123.com that will also conduct illegal unauthorized debit card charges on top of Intellis . They will charge you $19.95 or more every month of unauthorized debit charges. DO NOT SIGN UP OR GIVE YOUR CC # WITH THESE PEOPLE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! Contact the FCC or BBB to make sure these people are shut down immediately. Enough complaints and these folks will be shut down and sent to hard time in prison!

Thank goodness for this blog, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to figure out why I was charged by ValueMax. I too did some research on intelulis just a month ago and saw this charge. I just called ValueMax and they said they would refund my money in two days and cancel the membership and that I won't be charged anymore. I sure hope so! Thanks again to everyone's input on this blog.

[protected] I found a charge last night in the amount of $99.75 to my debit card account. When I check this morning into what it was I found out it was a company called Value Max. My online statement gave the 888 number, and I got my account number from them. I logged on there web site and found that I had a account there.
I had never heard of this company!
From some online searches I found out of the scam where they piggy backed with intelus, which I used this past February for a phone number search. I have reported them to my card company, and send intelus and value max an email.
Has anyone received an refund from them.
I will call the in the morning when they open again and see what can be accomplished.

I got hit since February 2009. If they don't give me back my money, I plan to file a lawsuit. If anyone is interested in joining a class action suit, post back on this thread.

They've charged me about $180.00 so far!

I was charged 24.95 twice. I called the number on my bank statement [protected]. When I said I did not know who they were and never signed up, the girl did not seemed surprised at all. She asked "how do you want to handle this?". I told her to cancel it and I want my money back. Was told they could only refund the most recent charge - will appear in 3-5 days. I had never heard of them - but I had used Intellius. I had used my bank card - I will stick to credit cards for on-line purchases from now on.

I work for this company. What I notice happens is that you give your information to classmates, Restaurants.com or Intellius and your information is transferred over to our company, and then we say you joined or you join youself and the company instantly charges you for two memberships. It suprising to see my co-workers believing this is real and not a scam. Word of advice: when you call in, do not get mad at the customer service person, they did do this to you, in order to get your refund or cancellation treat them with respect or else.

It sounds like you have accepted a third party company’s offer that is advertised on the Intelius website. If you no longer wish to be enrolled in that third party company’s service, please call [protected] Monday – Friday 4:30am – 9:00pm PST. We will be more than happy to assist you.

ValueMax is offered by Adaptive Marketing LLC which is a subsidiary of the parent company, Vertrue Inc., both of which are located at 20 Glover Avenue, Norwalk, CT. and share the same telephone number: [protected], according to the S.E.C filings. The corporation is registered in Delaware, MD. The principal executive offices are in Norwark, CT. Gary A. Johnson is the Chief Executive Officer and Director; George W.M. Thomas is the Senior Vice President and General Counsel.

Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Response Center 600 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W. Washington, D.C. 20580 www.ftc.gov [protected]. The FTC works for the consumer to prevent fraudulent, deceptive, and unfair business practices in the marketplace

CT Office of the Attorney General @ 55 Elm Street, Hartford, CT [protected]
CT Department of Consumer Protection, www.ct.gov/dcp [protected]
CT Department of Banking, [protected], 260 Constitution Plaza, hartford, CT [protected]

Intelius, Inc.
500 108th Ave, NE
25th floor
Bellevue, WA 98004
Business: [protected]
Customer Service: [protected]'

VERY IMPORTANT TO CHECK OUT: WA Office of the Attorney General @ www.atg.wa.gov
11/18/09: Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna testifies to Congress about deceptive online marketing tactics McKenna’s five-page statement describes how certain marketing methods have been purposefully used to deceive consumers into paying monthly membership fees for services they didn’t want. also in the same press release dated 11/18/09, "McKenna’s concerns parallel those expressed by the committee in a new 35-page investigative report, "Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and Their Impact on American Consumers.” The report charges that Web companies including Affinion, Vertrue and Webloyalty and their affiliates have earned more than $1.4 billion in the last decade by duping consumers."

Intelius, one of the companies contacted by the Senate committee, recently revealed in documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it is under investigation by the Washington Attorney General's Office. Intelius has a partnership with Adaptive Marketing, a subsidiary of Vertrue Inc.

More than 450 e-commerce websites and retailers (such as Intelius) have partnered with Affinion, VERTRUE, and Webloyalty (all based in CT) to employ aggressive sales tactics against their online customers. Of the $1, 4 billion in total revenue earned through using these tactics, $792 million of this total was earned by Affinion, VERTRUE, and Webloyalty's e-commerce partners. Thousands of customers have contacted the companies using words like "fraud, tricked, deceptive, misleading, scam, deceitful, dishonest, betrayed, and robbed" to describe their experiences. In discussing methods for reducing the cost associated with the call centers, VERTRUE employees estimated that it received "7 million customer calls per year" and that "cancellation calls represent approximately 98% of call volume."

United States Senate, Committee On Commerce, Science, and Transportation Office of Oversight and Investigations Majority Staff, "Aggressive Sales Tactics On The Internet and Their Impact On American Consumers", Staff Report for Chairman Rockefeller NOVEMBER 16, 2009

In 1989, Gary Johnson, a former CUC vice president founded Cardmember Publishing Company. In 1996, the companies shares began to be publicly traded under the name MemberWorks. In 2004, MemberWorks changed its name to VERTRUE. Three years later, in 2007, VERTRUE was de-listed and sold for approximately $800 million to a group of private equity investors led by One Equity Partners, the private equity arm of J.P. Morgan. Vertrue currently markets club memberships (including VALUEMAX) under the auspices of its subsidiary Adaptive Marketing, LLC.

UNATHORIZED CHARGES AND/OR OVERDRAFTS on the VALUEMAX CARD (a strategy)

Debit Cards: go to your bank within 60 days of the charge or as soon as you know about the charge, don't delay, and tell them that there has been fraudulent activity within your account. Explain that you wish to file a dispute, and demand that they assist you in accordance with Federal Regulation E. If the bank says that you have waited too long, explain to them how you called their 800 # as soon as the charges were found, and were told by the bank that nothing could be done. Remind the bank that they failed to assist you properly at the 800# and instead, provided you with an inadequate explanation of your right to dispute. Tell them that it's their fault TIME has expired, and since they gave you the wrong info to begin with, they will just have to deal with it, take the loss and reverse the charges. Tell them the truth: this was unauthorized and your account was NOT to be charged. Keep emphasizing how you never authorized anything! Direct them to complaintsboard.com to view the victim reports. CONTINUED ON THE NEXT POST

And if you are at the bank, walk them over to their computer and make them go to this site.. If you are on the phone with them, tell them you will wait while they access this site! Either way, be persistent.

DO NOT TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER

Let them you nicely, that you were advised to report them (the bank) and this situation to the Banking Commission in your state. Since each state has a different name for the agency/controller over banks, find that name before you call or get to the bank so you can throw it in their face. The more knowledgeable you appear to be, the further you will get. And just continue to demand the Federal Regulation E form. The bank CAN, MUST and WILL reverse the charge! But, you must be persistent; ask to speak to the supervisor or the area manager for all the branches in the state. CONTINUED ON THE NEXT POST

Let the bank personnel know you are meeting with media later in the day, that you would much rather they do the right thing (as most other banks have) by looking at the complaints and immediately reversing the charge (s) to your account; no matter long ago it was. Be sure to call the Media if necessary so you are telling the truth. If you have to, be loud (but nice) in front of the other customers. If you are just calling by phone, the above tactics should still work. The bank can easily fax or mail to you the Federal Regulation E dispute form.
CHARGES TO YOUR CREDIT CARD
If the charg was to your credit card (not debit card, check card, or checking account), contact the credit card company as soon as possible to request a dispute form. Consumers usually have a little longer to dispute fraudulent credit card charges (up to six months), but it is better to act right away.

CONTINUED ON THE NEXT POST

In this type of situation, credit card disputes are usually successful since fraudulent companies often won't contest the disputed charge.

REMEMBER ...Don't let them get you. The more reports filed on a Company or individual ( VERTRUE, INTELIUS, etc, the more likely it is that the authorities, media and attorneys will want to take action.

My story: an unauthorized charge by VALUE MAX on my debit card while purchasing an Intelius service for $24.95 which resulted in $70 dollars in overdraft fees. Called VALUE MAX and got a refund for the $24.95, credited back to my account as today, as for the overdraft charges, was told to fax Compliance (fax # [protected]) supporting bank documentation (bank statement), which I did, received the following form letter CONTINUED ON THE NEXT POST

P.O. Box 5152
Des Plaines, IL [protected]

November 20, 2009

Dear ...

This letter is in rep0nse to your recent inquiry regarding overdraft fees. We have verified that the terms and conditions of the ValueMax offer were clearly presented to you in writing via the Internet or direct mail, and you accept the offer. As per the terms and conditions of your web/direct mail enrollment, we cannot reimburse you for any overdraft fees. Your membership has been cancelled, and we have issued a refund of the subject
membership fee. CONTINUED ON THE NEXT POST

The credit has been posted to your account and should appear on your statement within the next two billing cycles.

If you wish to speak with a representative regarding this matter, please call Client Sales Support at [protected] between 7:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. CT, Monday through Friday.

Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to be of service.

Sincerely,

Client Sales Support
ValueMax CONTINUED ON NEXT POST

When you call the Compliance telephone number, [protected], you can only leave a voice mail, they state that they will get back to you in one business day, I did so yesterday and matter-of-fact received a return call today from Compliance as I was typing on Complaintsboard.com, "You called us about an overdraft fee", I immediately asked her how many of her return calls result in a resolution positive to the customer, she replied "one in five" I then inquired "what about my overdraft fees?", Compliance stated "You didn't cancel within seven days, we can't help you." I will know follow my own advice and talk to my bank.

It took a lot of time to research this and type all this all out, "perhaps I have too much time on my hands" BUT the entire situation really, really, really irked me! POWER TO THE PEOPLE