Leadership Roles:
- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Electronic Data Systems Corporation
- Managing Director of the Cypress Group, a private equity firm.
- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of Safety-Kleen Corp.
- Chief Executive Officer and President of AmeriServe Food Distribution Inc.
- Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of RailTex, Inc.
- President and Chief Operating Officer of Ryder TRS, Inc.
- President and Chief Operating Officer of Merisel, Inc.
- Chief Operating Officer of Burlington Northern Railroad Co.
I wrote, back on October 23, 2012, that I didn't know whether NCO was embarrassed by the presence of Mr. Rittenmeyer or Rittenmeyer was ashamed of his association with NCO. It seems it was the latter. Mr. Rittenmeyer is now listed as CEO of Turnberry Advisors LLC. His list of "leadership roles" is posted on their website here but I'll paste the relevant section below: No mention of NCO. So he is, rightly, ashamed. It's interesting, now knowing for certain how he felt, that he stuck around so long. Remember, this is a man who, during his tenure, apparently forbade his employees from identifying him as the CEO.
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Despite their assurance that they would like to resolve this issue, Bell Canada has thus far neglected to take the final step and SEND US A CHEQUE. We were supposed to have received a cheque and a call from Bell on November 12 to confirm that this matter had been resolved. Neither happened. No great surprise.
It's worth keeping in mind when talking to NCO that you are dealing with pond scum. Record calls if possible. At the very least document everything. Do not, under any circumstances send them money or even agree to send them money. These are people who wouldn't recognize the truth if it kicked them in the teeth. If you truly do owe money, send the original creditor a registered letter advising that you refuse to have any dealings with a criminal enterprise.
In our case, the alleged creditor is also a fraudster. Birds of a feather...
We got another call from Bell at 1:42 PM. This time from Brigitte Paquet of the Customer Relations Centre, Bell Executive Office. It seems credit for this followup belongs to Ellen Roseman of The Toronto Star. I had sent an email to Ellen on Wednesday. I got back to her Friday to say "hold off for now, Bell has responded" but apparently she had already made a call. Ms. Paquet summarized her call to me in the following email:
There will be no future dealings with Bell Canada. We'd need to be absolute idiots to put ourselves through that again. In fact, now we'll turn our focus to saving others from this type of harassment. Today, at 5:05 PM we received a call from Gina at Bell Canada. She would like to resolve this issue. According to their records, Bell owes us $14.73. She would also like to reimburse us the $47.25 that we paid Canada Post for sending documentation packages by registered mail.
I'm not entirely happy. Bell values the 20+ hours I've wasted talking to them and NCO at ZERO. We have no choice now but to subscribe to a credit monitoring service which is going to cost $264/year. The gutless cowards at NCO will not talk to us. They've sent word through Bell that they won't provide so much as an apology. Fraud, threats and intimidation are SOP (standard operating procedure) for these SOBs and they can't understand why we'd be upset. This site will remain live. I will make some attempt to monitor these companies going forward and provide links where I can to their future shenanigans. I've no doubt there will be more. I spoke with Canada Post this morning and they are going to be of no help. I'm surprised, my wife is not.
If you've been following our story, you will know that one of the issues is that Bell Canada claims, on and off, that some of their equipment has not been returned. This is, of course, a blatant lie. Bell supplied the boxes and the shipping labels to return the equipment via Canada Post. My wife dropped off the five packages at the Canada Post retail outlet in Highland Creek Village on July 3. The shipping receipts are available here. The packages were received by Bell Canada, three on July 4 and two on July 6, and each was signed for by R.S. The signed delivery receipts are available here. Canada Post will not launch an investigation on my behalf. Bell is the paying customer and only they can request an investigation. I leave it to the reader to decide how likely it is that Bell Canada will request an investigation into it's own incompetence. Further, Canada Post does not consider Bell's sending of falsified documents to be mail fraud. If you or I sent phony invoices through the mail, or a Nigerian Prince was trying to transfer his family's money, they'd be all over it. But, because Bell is one of the few remaining companies using the postal service, they (and their co-conspirators) can pretty much do as they please. I can't resist... Bell has some tips to avoid fraud and scams at https://service.sympatico.ca/index.cfm?method=content.view&content_id=6936. There's the usual boilerplate information there - the kind of stuff every child should know. They have, however, omitted the most important fraud avoidance technique: Don't deal with Bell Canada
I spent the morning putting together and mailing a complaint to the Ministry of Consumer Services, Consumer Protection Branch with copies to Mr. George Cope and Mr. Ronald Rittenmeyer, CEOs of Bell Canada Enterprises and NCO Financial Services respectively. $47 and change later they've all been put on notice. A couple of interesting things came to light today. I don't know whether NCO is embarrassed by his presence, or if Mr. Rittenmeyer is ashamed of his position, but one fact is clear: employees at NCO in Montreal claim that they are forbidden to identify the CEO of the company. Something just doesn't seem right. Is this business a mob front? Does anyone know? Turns out Mr. Rittenmeyer was the CEO of EDS when they were acquired by Hewlett-Packard back in 2008. I didn't spend a lot of time looking but it appears he was forced out within months of the deal closing. I guess he wasn't HP material. Must be a huge culture shock for him though, going from one of the world's most respected companies to one of the least. No blog tomorrow, we'll let the dust settle for a day. On Thursday I'll be talking to Canada Post about what constitutes mail fraud. Just when it looked like resolution was nigh... Today we received a "DEMAND FOR PAYMENT" from NCO Financial Services who purport to be a member of "the credit bureau". In reality, they are the 3rd party bottom dwelling scum suckers to whom Bell did not assign this account. We called NCO, and spoke with Jamie Freeman and her supervisor Allan Burley. The long and the short of it is they see themselves as Bell's white knights and don't want facts interfering with their quest. They have both been made aware that this is a fraudulent claim and that we have no choice now but to consider them knowing co-conspirators. Mr. Burley holds the peculiar view that they have no liability because "Bell told us to pursue this". I hope nobody tells him to shoot someone. For his next birthday, he'd like a pony. There are several things wrong with their demand. First, we don't owe Bell Canada any money. In fact, Bell Canada owes us. They have owed us for months. Bell's employee, Nirro (employee number 6033710), and his supervisor Tenneil Johnson have confirmed as much. As if we needed confirmation. Second, because we don't owe money and never have, their demand, by definition, is a falsified business document. Third, they sent this falsified business document via Canada Post. In my opinion, that constitutes mail fraud. We'll see what Canada Post thinks on Thursday. It started out such a nice day. We had a few errands to run around town but made the mistake of stopping to pickup the mail on our way down the street. I knew the moment the envelope was opened that a stop at the courthouse was in my immediate future. We called Bell from the courthouse parking lot and, by the time we requested the obligatory transfer to supervisor, I was ready to strangle the bitch. I had to leave the car. Something was going to get broken and it was likely to be my fist. Almost an hour later, I returned to the car with an armload of documents, brochures and forms to complete to begin the process of suing Bell Canada in Small Claims Court. My wife had good news though... she was still on the phone with Nirro (#6033710) and his supervisor Tenneil Johnson. Guess what? They owe us $14.73 If you listen carefully you pickup the most interesting information. Nirro (#6033710) has once again found the proof that the equipment has been returned and that Bell Canada does indeed owe us money (remember, the account was terminated on July 2nd and paid out in full on July 23 so they've owed it for a long time). Now he drops this pearl on us: this account has been outstanding so long it has been moved to collections. That's right. Bell has owed us money for so long that, rather than simply cutting us a cheque, like Rogers and Toronto Hydro have done, they have decided to put us in collections. Accounts must always be on the move at Bell Canada. I'm told not to worry, it's just an internal designation -- the account has not been forwarded to a 3rd party. |
AuthorsJust an ordinary couple that Bell Canada has chosen to harass. We don't know why we were targeted but Bell picked this fight. NCO rushed to their aid. Archives
November 2012
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