Consumer complaint received 2024-08-01
Product: Debt or credit management — Debt settlement
Issue: Charged upfront or unexpected fees — 
Company: FREEDOM FINANCIAL NETWORK (CA)

so for over a year and a half i got introduced to freedom debt relief, as i had gotten loans with high intrests rates, some women ran my it profile and she said that this was what i had she ran my social security with some credit agencies she came back and said ok this is what we can do they set me up with a plan for XXXX a month, i said thats fine. i think i can do that everything was going good until i lost my job i was barely scraping by. i couldnt make two or three payments as i had to choose between health insurance and making my payments i chose my health insurance .\par so after a few months they suspended my account and i also got a letter that i was being sued by one of the people who lent me the loans, so i called up XXXX  and i said hey i got this letter i remember you said you would take care of this, i told them i lost my job at the time and i couldnt make payments, they said ok this and that just send us what you can and send us the legal notice you got from your loan officer i said ok and i thought they were going to take care of it. so i call them up on following their statement that they would get back to me the time already elapsed on their time frame. they said they would of gotten back to me they never did, i finally got a hold of someone after their time frame and they basically said they need all their money that i couldnt get to them when i coudlnt pay as the loss of my job, mean while i barely started a new job and i was barely coming back to working again while dealing with car issues etc etc. i put all my trust into them and they didnt do anything for me so i have to call them up and ask for a refund. me being angry was an understatment, i just barely started up this new job and they basically took my money without question for a year. and then they decide to suspend my account because life happened? \par so i ask them for a refund as being they took out XXXX dollars somewhere about i cant exactly check because my account is suspended, but its not too far away from XXXX. so then they tell me they cant give me the money back and i say why? what did you do for the whole year and half, what have you done for me? they say that they paid off this XXXX XXXX  card from XXXX, its paid off in full, that was the easiest thing they could of done, it was only XXXX worth of debt more less, then they reduced it by half and saved my XXXX dollars and they paid themselves XXXX dollars in fees, i angrily resented what they did but i was like ok, what else did you do they were on the process of paying off my other XXXX XXXX card worth XXXX worth of credit. im like okay how much did you pay? because their policy is once they negotiate then they take their fees right away non refundablle and once they made the payment, but they say they paid XXXX dollars! and they took their hefty fees of XXXX dollars in fees right away non refunded. so for a whole year they didnt do nothing basically. not to mention all the stress on my new job from having to show up in court from which i did and they didnt even bother to send me legal representation, even tho i did talk to a lawyer but he basically said, well you got to pay. im like i cant trust this guy either. he probably talked to them and they told him to say we need payment from him. \par another note, their policy stating that they need to send payment and negoatiate a debt and send payment to the creditors those two credit cards were the only thing actively being paid on, and if we were to take into account all the fees and money paid it would only equate to a little less than XXXX. what about the other XXXX? so XXXX on the phone with the manager, i talk to her and she explains this policy and i said those are the only two payments that you made and you guys took your fees correct, she states yes, im like okay just give me back money then thats owed, she starts talking about this bank that has this ledger that it would make sense as to why i cant get this money, think of like a XXXX wallet, i have never heard of this bank at all, i call the bank up it sounds like a legit XXXX call center i was like this has got to be some sort of sick weird prank or joke, i would not trust the ledger from this bank, as i have never heard of the bank, and how do i know that they would not mess up the numbers? it seems pretty straight forward, i dont understand how they can say well this ledger would explain this information i call back a week or two later, another guy tells me a whole different story now its they started paying on this loan that i have and how do i know they didnt mess around with the dates and screwed around with the deposits amounts, the guy tells me nothing about the ledger this time and he says well we did send money to a loan company and the dates are on there so i look at the dates and they took their hefty exorbotent fees from me. so the guy doesnt even touch on what the other manager told me. needless to say im so mad because they dont even provide me with their law office, they change their story with my money and where did it go, and not to mention over a year and half they only pay off one credit card in full? after taking out close to XXXX worth of fees? and leaving me to take a day off work to represent myself in court, stressing out like crazy because i dont know what to expect? this company has been sued for in the past for the same exact thing for predatory practices like they are doing with my account in excess of XXXX XXXX. 
}