I was also contacted by this company in the fall (early Oct. /09). A woman who seemed very nice, named Tammi Woods, badge #AA58 contacted me. She was very convincing, and I also checked their accredition with the BBB, and trusted that they would only accredit legitimate, fair businesses. I was wrong!!!
They also took a while to get my ad up and running, and I also missed the part about sending in the refund registration form within 7 days (I have a feeling it wouldn't have made any difference though). When I called them, concerned that I hadn't heard from any interested buyers, I was told that 3 people had applied for financing that week, and it could take a week or 2 for the credit report to come through. I thought that was strange too, but tried not to worry. I never did hear from them or any interested buyers again, and when I tried to contact them in Jan., after my 90 days were up, I couldn't get through either. I also sent in my refund request form by registered mail, and it doesn't look like it made it out of the post office in Arizona. I was on mat-leave at the time, and we had already purchased a new vehicle, so things were pretty tight!!!
I feel very stupid, but it's comforting to know that I'm not the only one they managed to fool. It's terrible feeling this helpless in a situation though!!! Their website is still up and running, too, and I bet all of our cars are still advertised.
A few weeks ago, I was contacted by a company that sounded similar. Of course I told them I wasn't interested and that I'd already been scammed by one like them. Perhaps they've started back up under a new name now? Beware and spread the word!!! I think the BBB needs to do a bit more research and allow for a couple years (just like many banks do before giving loans to businesses) before accrediting businesses.
Hopefully if enough of us share our stories and all the info. we have on them, we can eventually track them down and shut them down for good. Like my husband said, "When you lose, don't lose the lesson". Hopefully we've all learned from our expensive mistake here too!!! Oh, some advice that was given to me was to make sure you always have something in writing before giving your financial information.
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