Consumer complaint received 2021-09-07
Company: Golden Financial Services
State: OH
Product: Credit reporting, credit repair services, or other personal consumer reports
Sub-product: Credit repair services
Issue: Fraud or scam

Complaint:
XX/XX/2017 I was looking to re-finance my and my son 's private student loan that we had with a private lender. The total amount of the student loan was over ~ {$130000.00}. I came across a company, named Golden Financial Services, and began discussions with them. Their sales member told me that there were loopholes in the laws concerning paying off debt. He told me that Golden Financial Services could wipe all of my debt away and that my and my son 's credit scores would not be affected. He explained that the banking and loan laws were written in such away that individuals could default on their loans and that the services provided by Golden Financial would exploit those loopholes and wipe away our debt and that we would have a clean credit report thereafter. He said that Golden Financial has an A+ XXXX  rating and that thousands of customers, like my son and I, were pleased with their services. All I had to do was pay them {$27000.00} and my son and I would come out of this unscathed and without any debt. In addition, the sales representative also told me to aggregate my personal credit card debt and include those amounts in the process as well. So all in, I was wiping away approx. {$160000.00} of student loan and credit card debt and paying {$27000.00} to do it.. 

After many conversations, and the Golden Financial sales representative guaranteeing that it would take 9-12 months for the debt resolution and credit score clean up process to be complete, I signed up. The Golden Financial Services sales representative immediately contacted their sister company called XXXX XXXX, via phone. I paid Golden-XXXX  and was sent a packet to hand record calls and letters from debt collectors. I was told to tell the debt collectors to stop calling, get the names, locations, and contact information of the collectors. I then sent over the documentation, per the packet instructions, of any debt collector interactions electronically. I have every file and document that was sent. I was told that once I told the collection representatives to stop calling that they would. If any of them continued to call or contact me, they would be in violation and that I could seek compensation. 

XXXX XXXX debt collectors and the other lenders debt collection departments began to call and send letters regarding paying my debt. When I asked them to stop calling me, they said they had every right to do so. I explained that there were laws against it but they said the laws did not pertain to them. I reached out to Golden-XXXX  and they said to keep recording everything and send the contact information to them as instructed. This went on for about a year and the pressure my son and I was getting from XXXX XXXX was tremendous. We did not understand what was going and and why. When we reached out to Golden-XXXX, they just said to continue on and let my loans default. They could not do anything to relieve our debt and cleanse our credit scores until the lenders sold our debt to third party debt collection agencies. When I questioned them about the 9-12 month guarantee, they said, sometimes this happens and that our case was unusual.

After about a year of harassing calls the lenders sold off our debt to private debt collectors, who then began to call me and my son again. I continued to call Golden-XXXX  for them to explain what was going on and they just said to keep doing what I am doing and that everything was on track. Several months went by and I got a call that the process was over and that my son and I had graduated. I went and looked at our credit scores and they were a mess. Nothing had been cleansed and we continue to get letters from the original lenders and third party debt collection agencies. I called Golden-XXXX  and they said they did their job as promised. I asked what they did and they said they were successful in removing my debt and cleansing my credit report. I said they did nothing and when I complained, they said they never guaranteed that our debt would be wiped clean and that our credit scores would not be affected. They said they were able to remove the negative comments and scores from the private debt collectors as promised. I asked them about the debt collectors from the lenders, and they said they never guaranteed cleaning those issues up. 

Upon continued complaining, I had phone calls from the mid level management. They admitted that they made a mistake and offered me {$10000.00} to resolve the situation. They said that they did not want this issue to go to the owner ( s ) because that would be bad. They wanted to keep the owner ( s ) out of it. I asked to talk to the owner ( s ) and they refused. My son and I retained a lawyer who sent a letter requesting full compensation, including paying my lenders/debt collectors ~ {$160000.00} that was owed to them and to cleanse our credit scores. To this day, no response was sent and nothing has been resolved. Me and my son 's credit scores are trashed. 

So, basically what Golden Financial-XXXX  Solutions did was without a doubt, fraud. I was looking to refi-my private student loans to a lower rate and they sold me a " guaranteed '' process that would relieve my loans and retain my credit scores per the loopholes in the banking laws. At the time I signed up for their services, I was not even in default with my creditors. They said nothing about that and coached me on how to let the loans default.

Company public response: Company believes the complaint provided an opportunity to answer consumer's questions
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation