Grace Period, Inc.

To Those With Student Loan Debt I got a call from "Financial Management Systems", who say they are offering some kind of rehabilitation program on behalf of fees towards my student loan debt. Well if you are part of this program or have received a call from this debt collection agency here is a PSA. --- They are part of a list of about 15 companies under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission for fraud related to the collection of additional fees in association with the pretense they are relieving loan debt. Other major companies doing this include "Strategic Student Solutions", "GC Services", and "DeVry Refunds". The investigation has been apparently ongoing from February of last year, but only recently has the Federal Trade Commission received enough evidence to indite the responsible organizations for the violation of the FTC Act and the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act. --- [Here is one such related article.](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/05/ftc-stops-operators-unlawful-student-debt-relief-credit-repair) [Another from the Bureau of Consumer Protection.](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2017/02/student-loan-debt-collector-will-pay-700000-unlawful-collection) --- The nature of the scam is as follows. - They offer a "debt rehabilitation program". - They offer low monthly payments over a period of time to drastically reduce the student debt you owe. (5-50 dollars). - If you question the program, they insist that if you do not participate your wages will be garnished. - They have you sign an agreement to begin paying every month for x months. With a very narrow grace period. - If you make all payments, they pay the dividend to the Department of Education as contracted ($800 is what Financial Management Systems offered me). - If you fail to make ***1*** payment, you are charged (in the case of Strategic Student Solutions, and Financial Management Systems) between $1600 and $4000 in additional penalty fees.

Don't Fly Virgin America! Below is my email communication with Virgin America after submitting a support ticket for a false charge to my cc. Support Ticket Msg: I tried to book a flight online and your website timed out before my credit card information was confirmed. I tried twice and the same issue occurred. I never received an email confirming my booking and yet a week ago my credit card statement shows that you pulled money from my account. I need the money to be refunded and the flight cancelled if my reservation ever went through **I feel this should be put out there so others can share their stories and maybe put the smallest bit of pressure on these companies to show accountability.** Please excuse the format of the post as I have never posted to Reddit before and saw this as the easiest way to do so. **Virgin America:** Hello XXXX, I understand and apologize for any inconvenience. I did find one reservation under your name, 'XXXX XXXXX', but I would need you to verify the last 4 digits of the credit card used to purchase the ticket before I can review the reservation and give you your options. Please get back to me as soon as it is convenient for you. I look forward to hearing back from you! If you still need further assistance, please contact us at 1.877.FLY.VIRGIN (359.8474), and one of our agents will be happy to assist you. Thank you for choosing Virgin America Brooke S. Virgin America Chat Specialist **Myself:** Thanks for the timely response. The last four digits are XXXX. **Virgin America:** Hello XXXX, Thank you for that information. I do see the reservation. This was booked on the 1st of December and is over the 24 hour grace period after booking. It is also a non refundable ticket. Unfortunately I cannot refund this to your credit card. There would be a $150 cancellation fee taken out of the value of the ticket and the rest would be refunded to a voucher that you could use for future flights with us. If this is okay with you I will c

Need help determining my termination was lawful and if not what course of action I can take. Its a rather long and detailed post FYI, just a heads up, was told to put TL;DR. (Sry, new to reddit). To give you complete back story I'll give you a brief overview of my employment with a rather large (although declining) and old department store that more or less is only afloat do to their appliance and hardware sales (I'm sure everyone knows who i'm referring to.) I was employed with this company in the Bay Area and was with them for just shy of two and a half years in the television and consumer electronics area. Never once had a customer complaint but multiple (over 50) customer reviews of my service totaling 98.7% approval and satisfaction rating. Never in that time frame had one "write up" or any sit downs for corrective behavior, never had a negative incident with numerous manager that passed through my store. All until my last manager. This manager was a former district manager of a gamestop, district managers generally have no experience with IN STORE customer service although that's not always true. In any case, who was hired to run the appliances and electronics, electronics for the most part is self sufficient unless a manager approval is needed for something. December, 2011 To start off with, a customer came is asking to see a particular item which to me and another co-worker (both of us had been with the company in that department for over 2 years) had no knowledge of us carrying. The customer was visibly angry at us for apparently not knowing how to do our job. I took her to one of our online stations and showed her that we didn't carry that particular product as none of our products are only available in stores since you can always select in store pickup from our website. She then retorts with she has it on good authority that a employee of the store KNOWS and told her we have the item. She pulls out her cell phone and calls someone. A phone call comes