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From: "Jeffrey Munks" <jjmunks@attbi.com>
Folks, I sent the following email to Overstock.com, the fools who host DAMARK s website. I also sent it to the attorneys generals of all 50 states, the US attorney general, the SEC (Overstock is publicly traded), the Secret Service (wire fraud is a federal crime), and to a number of newspapers. I ll give you the fall-out at the end of this email& J: PLEASE FORWARD THIS NOTE TO
YOUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Sirs and Madams,
I first became aware of DAMARK
(www.damark.com) with a charge that appeared on my credit card on
the (transaction date 1/23/03) February bill of my ATT Universal Card.
The charge was for $149.99 and was described as "DMK DAMARK REWARDS".
My wife called DAMARK on 25Feb03 and spoke with Monique, a supervisor. She asked what product this charge represented. Monique explained that it was for a rewards program, like a club. My wife asked how the charge had been made. Monique said it was probably from a telemarketing call to our home. My wife told Monique that our family had received no call from DAMARK and that we had made no purchase. She also told Monique that we have never purchased anything from a telemarketer and never would. In point of fact, we use call screening to avoid taking calls from telemarketers and, on the rare occasion when one actually gets through, we politely inform them that we do not buy anything on an unsolicited basis. Monique said she would credit our account and she gave a reference number of 853-69435.
On 4 March 2003, My wife called ATT Universal Card to make sure that the charge had been taken off our account and was informed that there is still a balance of $30.89 related to the DAMARK charge. She then called DAMARK again and was informed that they had deducted a pro-rated amount which left us owing $30.89 for something we never ordered! She asked to speak to a supervisor and was connected with Lance, who explained that in order for us to get credited for the balance, we will have to wait for a letter from DAMARK advising if our challenge of the charge is accepted. She asked to speak with Lance's supervisor and was told there was no one else available? Lance was as high as she could go. In other words, DAMARK gets to keep money that was fraudulently misappropriated from us through what has to be an illegal manipulation of our credit card account, while we challenge a charge we never placed against our account. I wonder how many other people are struggling with this problem. I also wonder how much money DAMARK is making by using our (collective) money while delaying tactics are employed to keep us at arm's length from what is, effectively, stolen property - our money.
I am sending this email to you along with a request for your immediate attention and corrective action. I am also sending this email to the Attorneys Generals of South Carolina, Utah, Minnesota, (the states DAMARK shows corporate activity within) and to the Attorneys Generals of the other 47 states, the FBI, the Secret Service, the Attorney General of the United States, and the SEC (as well as several newspapers with a tradition of investigative reporting and to the O'Reilly Factor, a FOX News show that often focuses on flagrant abuses of the public trust) in hopes of bringing to light what appears (to this untrained eye) to be a conscious effort to defraud credit card holders, by use of electronic funds transfers across state lines, of money without their knowledge or consent. This all may be a terrible mistake and you could be wonderful folks. If you are, I'll be the first to apologize. But the response of your company to date paints a very different picture. In this! era of wholesale corporate corruption, I can't help but visualize some enterprising group of DAMARK strategists coming up with a plan to "plant" charges on the cards of hundreds of thousands of ATT customers (you have the list) knowing full well that most will be disputed, some will be ignored and paid without question and all will represent tens of millions of dollars that DAMARK gets to "borrow" for a measured period of time, never having to return the full amount that was stolen.
Again, I am not a professional investigator, but doing a Google search on your company, I found that I am far from alone. Check http://www.outofthedark.com/CyberPagan/Damark.html and read the tails of woe from many other people who feel they have been scammed by DAMARK in the same way described herein. After reading a half dozen of these incidents, I found myself thinking that DAMARK resembles an organized criminal enterprise as described in the RICO statutes. That was when I decided to include the U.S. Attorney General's office in this email distribution. You guys are scary! Regards Jeffrey J. Munks
BREAK BREAK
Within a day of sending this email, I began getting responses from the various states. The best was from Minnesota, a state in which the DAMARK criminal enterprise (my opinion) has an operation. The AG from Minnesota informed me they had sued DAMARK and won a judgment that required DAMARK to produce an audio tape of the customer s voice agreeing to a charge placed on their account. If they can t produce the tape, they have to refund the amount and pay you the same amount as a penalty. The AG invited me to file a formal complaint. I did and they sent a nasty-gram to DAMARK informing them they had 10 days to make it right. I got a nice call from DAMARK asking where I wanted the check mailed and assuring me that they would fully credit our account. I said thanks and hung up. But it is not over. These crooks need to be put out of business. Regards, jeff
Jeffrey J. Munks jjmunks@attbi.com
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