Consumer complaint received 2017-04-07
Company: Lipsky & Associates, Inc
State: SC
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Other bank product/service
Issue: Making/receiving payments, sending money

Complaint:
Hello, Thank you for your concern. What follows is what happened. 
Moved into new purchased home XX/XX/2016. Solicited by Equity Plus, Customer Service number XXXX. Selling a service to us, to collect our mortgage money twice a month and pay our lender. Did not sign anything, only spoke to them over the phone. Never received any information in the mail after speaking to them. no service rep ever called me. 

We thought this was something we might like to do, mortgage pay off early. It was sold to me, with the added assurance and security, they would never BEGIN the program, if I called and told them not to draft my account. And they never did. I never got anything going with equity plus, except to call them and tell them, we could not commit to any of the arrangements and politely ask them to continue to stay out of our account. They never took a single draft. We never received any information or signed anything, it was all verbal at no risk or so thought. 
Not so much. 

After one year of not doing any business with them, I called and said no thank you we are not going to be able to use this service, we ca n't get ahead and do it your way. My husband is ill, always paying hospital bills, we just ca n't get {$500.00} extra money together to start your program. Thank you but no thank you. 

Then the lady proceeded to tell me how they were going to charge my account, roughly {$350.00}, for service they never provided and we never officially or otherwise requested they provide. I argued, when we begin the program I said yes, then you can have your {$350.00} but not in the event we do no business! Things got heated on the phone when I tried to tell them to stay out of my account, spoke to supervisor who said she would invoice me. 
I have no idea how this company thinks they 're entitled to {$350.00} for picking up the phone half a dozen times to find out they did n't have a client, we were NEVER ready to commit to anything! Other than the many times we were solicited by mail to join equity plus, they never generated a stitch of paper on our behalf. They want hard currency for virtually nothing. Please do n't let equity plus do this to people, we were scared to death to provide them all the information about our bank account and our mortgage! We only had a certain amount of time before the offer expired, we had to give them everything they wanted in order to be eligible for a future payment. Their flyer had an expiration to join for our new mortgage. These people are crooks, perhaps they do a fine job when it works, but if they do n't do anything for you they still want paid. From people who could n't EVER afford to get going with it. We did not seek them out, they preyed on us. we ended up with a hurricane relief program with our lender over the course of our first year. There were times during that we could n't even pay the mortgage. Nevertheless equity plus provide no service but they did provide plenty of intimidation, and plenty of threating of my bank account on the way out. It got ugly and I lost my cool over the lack of common sense of it all. {$350.00} for nothing. I was n't on my best behavior. No excuse and I regret things got out of hand. I called them six times to let them know they did n't have a client! What they are asking now is unreasonable and erroneous. Seemed like I would easily have legal grounds as they indicated was my right, I was infuriated to say the least, at no point in that first conversation did they ever warn me about taking my money anyway. Defies common sense. Am middle-aged and beginning to think everything is a scam, since I do n't recognize the world I 'm living in, when a company can behave this way. This is not right. 

Thank you sincerely for your time

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with non-monetary relief