So the Credit Card Services scammers have a new back end name: Universal Card Services. According to the pleasant voice, UCS can reduce my credit card rates “from zero to six percent”… whether that’s the final rate or the reduction amount is not clear.
As with CCS, they “work with your credit card company” to reduce your rates. The pleasant boiler-room voice gave some numbers:
- Citi 2-6% reduction
- BoA 4-8% reduction
- Capital One isn’t cooperative (I wonder why?)
They are evidently scraping the bottom of the barrel of desperate credit card users: you must have a balance of at least $1500 (!) and a rate of at least 6%.
If I were willing to agree that I met those requirements, he’d “qualify me” and pass me on to the “low interest rate advisor” who would tell me more about the company. He “had only been working there for a month” and really couldn’t tell me more than the company name; the “advisor” would answer all my questions about where the company was located, what their phone number might be, and so forth and so on.
I asked again where they were located and click that was the end of that.
Elapsed time: 4:33. Not a record, but not bad at all.
I suppose I must start lying to them in order to make more progress… perhaps I should feed the “advisor” one of our old credit card numbers that’s been closed due to fraudulent activity? Nah, that’d give them entirely too much information.
The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning 
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12 responses to “Universal Card Services”
Maybe get a “disposable” credit card number just to give them?
https://www.google.com/#q=one+time+use+credit+card+number
I don’t know if they’d have the stones to sue for non-payment when the card goes toes-up on them. After all, I might have entered into something vaguely resembling a legal obligation…
Verbally, over the phone, to known scammers. Gotta watch that, it could be habit-forming. [grin]
I had some of these persistent scam type calls a couple of years ago from an outfit pushing discount hotel accommodation. On the last call and after talking for a few minutes and making interested noises, I told them I had to go in to the office urgently and to call me back there. I gave them the phone number for our New Zealand Police Scamwatch hot line and told them to ask for Mark. I then called Scamwatch and told them to expect a call soon asking for Mark.
I didn’t hear from the scammers again :-)
I like that! Great idea!
Now, if only we had a similar service on this side of the Pacific…
Apparently they cleared their no-call list, as they just called me too. However, I was unable to “press 1 to be connected to an operator”, as I was at a rotary phone. Since “this is your last notice”, it sounds like they won’t be calling me back. But I know better.
The evidence suggests they just demon-dial everybody and wait for suckers to press a button. Now it’s your phone exchange’s turn in the barrel.
I can’t think of any way to discover whether pressing a button increases the odds of getting another call. You’d want to believe they would be smart enough to not call a non-responding number again and again, but given that they use an automated front end, the cost of dialing and discarding numbers must be close enough to zero as to not matter at all.
Yeah, that makes complete sense. I briefly flirted with the idea of adding some DTMF to my answering machine message so I could record their boiler room operators saying “Hello? Hello?”, but I realized that this could cause problems for the rare machine calls I actually care about.
[Ed: Although I cannot verify this information, it passes some simple dipstick tests. The information at the obvious URL seems exactly as sleazy as you’d expect and the phone number matches. Trust / use at your own peril…]
Hey people today is your lucky day. Do I used to work for ‘Universal Card Services’ and they are so awful i’m disgusted. The companies real names is Relief That Works (.com for website) and their real phone number is 1.866.706.2877 but they’re not allowed to give you that information until they received all your information so you don’t go crazy when you see the charge on your card. The bosses name is Jeff and he’s the worst pos of them all. He tells employees to treat people like crap if they won’t give you their information and to hang up if they ask for a boss or the companies information. I was fooled they say that they see employees as family and that everything is legit but come payday and even our checks bounce??!!!! (at least every other check)… Screw this place they operate in Phoenix AZ and you can find all their real info on there website. Everyone needs to report this place until they’re shut down.
Oh ps. The reason webby you might receive different numbers is because they used a third party dialing service so they don’t have to use their number
Trust me I worked at this place. I honestly wouldn’t be reporting them like this if those pieces of crap would’ve just paid me but they won’t even give me my last checks!!!! Which they didn’t and still refuse to. I know its the exact same company because you ‘must have’ $1500 in debt and over 6% interest. The boss’ name is Jeff and also pat. The employees are Liz, Chris, Vicky, Lisha and another chick. But I don’t take it out on the employees because they’re just honest people trying to make end meet. if anything take it out on that pos Jeff who runs that tiny corrupt company which operates in a smaller office than my damn living room. If you have any questions if be more than happy to answer them and help take this awful ‘company’ down.
People need to spread the word every where because they get people for over $4000 daily which is very sad. A couple days before I quit one of the ladies working there said she kept receiving calls from a woman that wanted her money back and she just laughed….and next time they call you say you know they operate in Phoenix AZ by 24st and Osborn and I’ll Bet $1,000,000 bucks they hang up
Well, I’ll certainly try that and report back on the results!
Thanks for the information…
They’re calling me every couple of days now, but since I’m in the computer room with a rotary phone I can’t press “1” (or sometimes “3” for some reason) to talk to an operator. I suppose I could digitize the DTMF and have the computer do it. They give up too quickly for me to run up the stairs to another phone.