Intelius Reverse Telephone Number Lookup, Fraud, Theft, Beware, Intelius Sucks, Mike Michael Bender, Unauthorized Charges

This web page details our opinions of and experiences with:

INTELIUS.COM
FRAUDSTERS EXTRAORDINAIRE
Intelius Reverse Telephone Number Lookup,
Fraud, Theft, Beware, Intelius Sucks

Just how fed up with Intelius ARE people, anyway?

THIS fed up:

Unauthorized Charges

BECU
PO Box 97050
Seattle, WA 98124-9750

Chargeback Dispute RE:

Intelius Inc.
500 108th Ave NE
Bellevue, WA 98004
Phone: (425) 974-6100

On 12-18-2011 we tried to use an “Intelius” online service (www.intelius.com) to reverse trace a phone number from whose owner a harassing communication had originated. We knew the person was a California “attorney” named Mike (Michael) Bender and we had tried to file a complaint against him with the California BAR association. Unfortunately the BAR has multiple Michael Benders registered as California attorneys; they agreed to accept the complaint if we could provide enough information to figure out which Mike Bender we were dealing with. We therefore tried to reverse search his San Francisco cellular number (415) 637-7493), which is a Sprint Spectrum Lp account registered in the city of San Francisco. Our hope was to obtain enough data as to allow the BAR to tell us which “Mike Bender” we needed to go after.

If you care to check your files, we’re betting you have tens of thousands of chargebacks against Intelius. It appears that law enforcement is finally taking a hard look at them, and they may in fact be shut down. Hindsight is 20-20. We should have Googled Intelius first.

Several of the initial Intelius screens assured us that if the name and address of the account holder wasn’t available, we wouldn’t be charged. The screens also assured us that Intelius did, in fact, have the name and address of the account holder. We therefore clicked as required to spend the $4.95 to obtain the record. We intended to forward that record to the California BAR and to law enforcement.

Intelius has gone to extremes to try to trick the customer into also signing up for a 3-month “membership”. We were exceedingly adept at dodging every one of these instances of trickery and at NO TIME did we click anything that would have authorized anything more than one $4.95 charge.

Once the transaction was complete we saw that Intelius had actually charged us $4.95 twice. This is in our view fraud and we believe it can be so proven criminally.

Intelius provided ZERO data for this number – no name, no address, no other useful data in any way, shape, or form. No promised (contracted for) data was included on the resultant web page (see attached print) and no other data was contained in the .pdf file that Intelius sent us. Therefore, Intelius is not entitled to the first $4.95, let alone the second $4.95.

We are now informed that Intelius has “enrolled” us in some sort of ongoing membership at a cost of $14.95 which, if not cancelled within 7 days, will become a permanent and automatically renewing charge on our card. We DID NOT authorize this charge, or this membership, and Intelius knows this full well. This is their third instance of what appears to be criminal fraud in just this one case.

We have tried to contact Intelius to cancel the errant account, by using the number they supply (they offer nothing but a phone number – no email, no web page, nothing – only this phone number). Of course, as you have guessed several paragraphs up, we are unable to get through on this number. It either rings forever, or is busy, or you’re led into a labyrinth phone menu from which there is no escape except to hang up. This is, we believe, by design – this seems to be the mentality at work at Intelius.

At this time we are disputing the two $4.95 charges as well as the $14.95 “subscription” charge (orders 52661XXX, and 52662XXX, respectively). We also ask that NO FURTHER CHARGES be allowed to be debited to that card by Intelius. We are cancelling the card at this moment to make sure.

This complaint is being forwarded to our local county sheriff, to the California Attorney General, to the Better Business Bureau, to the Federal trade commission, and it is posted publicly, online, at the following URL:

http://www.truth-or-consequences.com/badder_business_bureau/intelius_fraud/intelius_fraud.html

Intelius is a rogue company apparently engaging in fraud on what appears to be an hourly basis – probably more like hundreds of times per hour. Google “INTELLIUS FRAUD” to get just a glimpse of the ill-will this company is fostering worldwide. We do not believe Intelius provides ANY real information to ANYONE, but is simply a company of “smoke and mirrors” that derives its profit from that percentage of its victims who neglect to dispute their fraudulent debits. I know of no worse company in operation in the United States today.

Intelius has at least one office in Washington; ironically it’s two miles from our main home and perhaps 1000 yards from where we work in Bellevue.

This is a case of out and out fraud. It is theft. We hope to prosecute it as such, and we intend to tell these scumbags what we think of them face to face. Enough is enough. We’ve now sent our data request to a licensed Washington private investigator for resolution, who will supply us with far more than Michael Bender’s address.

[signature]

12-18-2011

CC: Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office; Attorney; FBI; Federal Trade Commission; BBB; Washington and California Attorneys General; Public Internet post

BCC:

Note: The downloadable .pdf is identical to this and does not provide the promised data.
Just another bait and switch. The folks at Intelius must be "Carnies" at heart.

Any new developments will be appended below: