On Wednesday 20 February 2008, angelhelp777@
> I have a questions about a company that is not an MLM, but could
> very well be a scam. With all the credit card debt out there I have
> seen a ton of people in the net offering to, by some secret miracle
> that only they know, to wipe out all my credit card debt.
There are a myriad of these companies and generally all should be
avoided. Many companies that offer to help are scams. One I read
about promises to reduce payments and in the fine print that most
people can't understand without a lawyer (even if they did read it) it
states that you make payments to them for a year before they start
paying off your credit cards -- so you have to keep up payments for a
year to your cards AND pay the scumbags! That's just one example.
There are good solid companies that can help you, but most aren't
spending a lot of money on ads. Spend time Googling for them. And
remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
> One guy
> brags about all the trips he has been on and thousands he has made by
> "gifting". I am supposed to send him $5,000 and he will help me find
> people who are willing to give me $5,000 and it is all based on the
> Bible.
That's the first warning sign. If it's based on the Bible or
Christianity, then run, don't walk, away. Or as I often quote, be
afraid. Be VERY afraid.
It's not that there is a problem with Christianity or the Bible, but
when someone makes a big deal about proclaiming their faith, then you
have to wonder why their deeds don't speak well enough for them. It's
a variation of Vaughan's Law (yes, my own law, named after me). I've
said for years if someone has a license plate "2???4U" then you know it
should be "Not Enough ??? To Feel Good About Myself." When was the
last time you saw someone with "2SEXY4U" on a plate and the person was
actually sexy and not a greasy haired pimply guy driving a muscle car
trying to pick up chicks (oh, and weighing 250-400 lbs)? This may
sound off topic, but I'm quite serious about this. If someone is that
sexy, they don't have to say it on their license plate. If a guy is
that hot, he'll be getting laid whenever he wants and he doesn't need
to advertise.
The point is that when people start saying, "I'm too sexy," or "This is
a Christian business," then run away. If they have to say, "We're
professionals,
scientist?" He's also the one that talked about being professional,
but Venkeman was the least professional of all of them. See my point?
If he's truly helping people and truly Christian, he won't need to say
so. Every time I've ever done business with a company that makes a big
deal about their faith, I've regretted it. A while back I was at a
public show and someone was giving out pens to people as they walked
by. "Grapevine Computer Repair. A Christian company." What in
Heaven's name does it matter if a computer repair company is Christian?
Are they going to faith-heal my computer? I've been making my living
with computers for years, including fixing all of mine if they go down
and I can tell you that one's faith has nothing to do with computer
repair skills.
The same is true with financial works. If they know what they're doing
and know how to run an organization, then it doesn't matter if they're
Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Taoist, Wiccan, Santarian, Voudon, Hindi,
or anything else. It matters that they know what they're doing.
When they start saying they're Christian, they're doing it so they can
make sure you know it -- and if they say it that's because down inside
they know their actions won't show it. They are the hypocrites on the
street corner that pray loudly so everyone can hear them, then they go
back home, settle down in their opulent homes, and talk about how good
they are.
> After just a few short weeks God is going to bless me with
> piles of FedEx envelopes filled with cash because I had the faith to
> give to others.
If that's so, why does God need him to do it? If God wants to bless
you, can't he do it by himself? Think about this. Have you given to
the church or other charities before? Do you get money back because
you do? I give something like $25 a month to World Vision to help a
girl in Africa. I have yet to see some kind of gift dividend coming
back to me because I'm doing that good work. If giving to others means
getting of like gifts for one's self, then I should be getting back
$25-$75 a month or more for each time I give money to this girl.
There's also an important theological/
overlooked. If you give to get something back, you aren't giving.
You're investing. A true gift is given without expectation of
receiving anything in return and enriches the giver just out of the
personal growth and the exercise of generosity. If you give someone
$5,000 with the expectation you'll get Fedex envelopes coming back to
you with $5,000 in each one, you're not giving a true gift.
Oh, and the other point is that it's a pyramid scheme, plain and simple.
Or Ponzi. We can get technical if needed. What he's doing is getting
a few people to give $5,000 to one person, then getting more to give
$5,000 to each of the first level of givers, and so on. Look at it
this way: It starts with him and say he needs $20,000 to pay off his
debt. He needs 4 people. If each of the 4 averages $20,000 in debt
(actually the national average of people in credit card debt is above
$20,000 or was last I checked), then those 4 givers need 4 each, or 16.
And so on. Even if you don't need 4 givers, but only 2, then each
generation needs twice as many as the one before it.
If that doesn't sound like much, if each generation needs just twice as
many, it goes like this:
0 Generation: 1 person (the original debtor)
1st generation: 2 people
2nd generation: 4 people
3rd generation: 8 people
4 - 16
5 - 32
6 - 64
7 - 128
8 - 256
...
16: 16,384
24: 16,777,216 or over 16 million
32: 4,294,967,296 or over 4 billion
(As of 7/07 the total world population is estimated at 6 billion.)
Such schemes will, by necessity, fall in upon themselves. One might
think they can reasonably go on for 16-20 generations if you look at
the numbers, but out of practicality, they'll fall apart before 8
generations.
> While the Bible does teach to give to those in need,
> I do not think this is what God had in mind.
Note the point I made earlier. In this case you're not giving, since
you have expectations of a return for your "gift."
You have to go with your gut. It's about your personal relationship
with God.
> I had a phone meeting
> with the guy and pointed out the fact that if each person that gave
> got back more than her gave, then someone eventually would be left
> holding the bag with nothing. The conversations ended right after
> that due to what he called my "lack of faith".
Translation: You brought up a point he could not deal with, so he turns
it on you. This is the same tactic an abusive person takes on people.
For example, the wife-beater will say, "You made me beat you. You
didn't have supper ready on time so I had to beat you." He blames the
victim (or potential victim) for the problems because he doesn't have
the guts to admit to his own shortcomings. This is what's going on
with the super-Christian giver. He doesn't want you to see through his
scam so if you pop his bubble, he'll blame you. Most people will feel
so badly they will just cower and give in.
> Quixtar was similar
> with everyone being taught to push all negative thought out of your
> brain and fill it only with positive thoughts that Quixtar would put
> there. Now comes along a new angle. This time with credit card debt.
> One group wanted me to basically ignore the collection agents, or
> actually antagonize them, and then log the calls with the idea if
> they went over their legal limit I could sue them for all I owed and
> more and even get back the $2000 I paid this guy to help me sue them.
That's a complete misunderstanding of what's going. You should do some
Googleing for Fair Debt Collection Practices. It's a law. There are
limits, but if you tick off some drone on the phone that doesn't mean
they'll call you back. For example, when I was starting my business I
had to rack up credit card debt. I paid it all off, but Wachovia
misreported my last payment for something like $54.34 (or whatever) and
it got logged as me not paying and owing it. I still get letters from
debt collection agencies on it and should clear it up, but when I get a
letter, I can send them a registered, return-receipt-
telling them to never contact me again and to contact my lawyer if
needed. Generally they don't pay attention, see it as nothing but a
response, and will send me a response. Since I've told them not to, my
friend/lawyer and I can sue them. That will generally be $1,000 for me
and $1,500 for him.
There are limits in what collectors can do, but the bad part is that the
law lets the original creditor do much more than most debt collectors.
If you have a credit card with Chase, which is one of the nastiest
banks I've seen (although Capital One is known as the one bank fastest
to sue their own customers!), they can call you many times a day.
If you want to play this game, YOU HAVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING! You
also cannot nail the original credit card bank with the same tactics
you can use to nail a debt collector.
> I'll pass on that one too! Finally I come to the one that peaked my
> interest. For up to 10 credit cards totaling less than $100,000 in
> debt I pay $2500 plus a couple of hundred per card. A small payment
> is then sent to the credit card company or collection agent which
> they will jump on and cash like a starving catfish on a fat worm.
Remember, while this is going on, that it's also effecting your credit
rating because the credit card bank is reporting your lack of payments.
The analogy is also way off. They'll take the payment, but will still
be asking for more. They want it paid off. Or, more accurately, they
want you to keep making minimum payments for as many years as they can
string you out.
> Since the credit card companies supposedly can change their rules and
> interest rates at a whim, a letter is sent with the check saying that
> cashing the check allows me to change their rules on them and
> suddenly I am in the drivers seat.
Do you really want to see if that holds up in court? Please, see if you
can take your camcorder in so I can watch the judge as he cracks up
laughing at that concept.
> I asked this company to see the
> letter, but it was privileged info that only this company would send
> directly to the credit card company. This company would then assume
> my debt in full and use some back door legal maneuver to get out of
> paying a dime.
BS.
You want a legit debt counseling agency. These are the ones that will
make sure you cut up your credit cards and close all your accounts,
among other things. There is no magic trick here to just make it go
away.
> I am being very sarcastic about my description
> because I am trying to convince myself that this is just another
> bogus scam...but I found nothing bad on the Internet on it.
It may be too new to have much on it or it may be people aren't
reporting it because they don't know what to do about it. There's a
number of reasons it might not be written up as a scam yet.
> Actually
> I found not much at all except for a few people that say it worked
> for them.
And how do you know those are real people and not ones planted by the
company?
> Starving fish like me tend to start taking chances when
> they see nothing else to eat. We rationalize a reason for trying
> something we would have never touched in a sane moment, but time and
> circumstance tend to make us a little crazy. We go into a "wishful
> dreaming" state hoping the if we hope hard enough something will
> solve our financial problems and that shiny thing in the water is
> really a minnow...without a hook inside.
Remember, though, that while it's great to think about how this might
help, if it doesn't, you'll be in a much worse situation soon. Don't
jump at something that could make things worse.
> After all this talking I
> guess what I want to know if anyone has heard of this idea. It has
> been offered to me on a couple of occasions and I keep backing away,
> but I need to do something besides standing in one place till I get a
> net thrown over me. If it were just me, I could ride it out, but we
> are down to nothing left and just watching as things are taken away
> one by one and my wife is the biggest loser. We lost her insurance
> at the end of the year and it was the only way to afford her bills
> and prescriptions. We run out of all prescriptions over the next 2
> to 6 weeks. I welcome all comments, but if any of you have "first
> hand knowledge" and wish to write me I would appreciate it. If you
> want to tell me about a particular company that you found that was
> actually legit, you might want to write directly to me at my personal
> email address rather than posting the name to the MLM Survivors group
> because that may be seen as soliciting for a company. Consumer
> Credit Counseling Services are useless because I have no income, at
> least not a steady one.
Seriously, you may also want to consider bankruptcy. I'm not saying
that to be mean. My clients are lawyers and two have been friends for
years. One is the lawyer I mentioned above who works with consumer
debt and the other is a bankruptcy attorney. If you don't have money
and don't have a way to pay credit cards, it may be time to start over.
If you look into this, look into BOTH Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. While
the laws have changed, many lawyers only do one and don't know if the
other one might work better. You want to find out which one will work
best for you. My understanding is that most lawyers do Chap 7, which
doesn't work as well for keeping any assets as Chap 13.
Failing that, start searching for legitimate credit reduction companies.
There are a number out there and the hard part is to find one that will
work with you without an income that is legit.
> My email is angelhelp777@
> those of you who wish to tell me to just pay back my debt, I am
> totally willing to do so, as long as I can work for your company from
> my home for minimum wage and health care for my wife. My wife is
> disabled and needs checking on every few hours so I am unable to work
> else where. There are no jobs anyway in Houston because the one
> requirement is that you must speak Spanish...but that is another
> story. Ya'll let me know if you have heard anything about a credit
> card debt removal company like I described. I really need to get
> them off my back so I can start taking care of other things more
> important. Thanks for the help. James
You may look into doing medical transcriptions. That's a work from home
situation and I know people who have done well with that.
Hal
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