The Hotline Report

The Hotline Report CSI Communications Group Stealing money from our company account using

28th of May, 2011 by User758769

Do not do business with The Hotline Report, CSI Communications Group, Jim Banks or James Carleto. They don't have an actual product - their goal is simply to get you to either write them a check or order advertising space using "check by phone." Once you do they'll have your checking account information and they'll continually print checks from your account and cash them at check cashing locations such as Merchants Bank or Check 'N Go. The Hotline Report is a little fishy to begin with. The publication looks like a high school kid put it together. They'll tell you that they've been around for 22 years, but there's just no way that their website or complete lack of professionalism is the product of 22 years in business. Their entire business revolves around selling advertising space in this entirely bogus "newsletter." The ads are supposedly classified style ads and each one carries a unique code at the bottom so that when an interested customer calls into The Hotline Report to get more information they're able to identify which advertiser to send them to. I guess that's supposed to save space or something. The bottom line is, they'll try to get you to pay using "check by phone." I spoke to another gentleman that had been convinced to send a blank check. Either way their goal is the same - they want your account information, address, etc. so that they can use Instant Check Payment Processing Software to write checks from your account over and over again. Since the day that they got a hold of our account information (about 2 months ago), they've written $1,500 worth of checks to someone named James Carleto. The original ad cost was $285. And in those two months we've never received a copy of the newsletter, any information on The Hotline Report, a receipt, or anything at all from The Hotline Report. In fact, we were never even given the opportunity to give them ad copy to place in the newsletter. The reason?... It doesn't exist. Here are some other fun facts about these idiots: The checks that they print aren't deposited in a bank, they're cashed at places like Check 'N Go which will give cash on the spot so long as you can present a driver's license.
The company doesn't have a real telephone number. The (800) number listed on the report doesn't even work (I wonder how people are supposed to respond to the ads?) and the main line goes to the cellular phone of Jim Banks (which is only turned on between the hours of about 1pm and 4pm Pacific, and the mailbox is typically full).
Once you figure out what they're up to there's no chance that they'll ever take a phone call from you again, and by "they" I mean Jim Banks. He's the only one besides this James Carleto that I can tell has anything to do with this.
The scam starts with an accidental "double charge." Jim will call you and say that he's very sorry but they have some new people working in the office and they accidentally charged you twice for your ad. It's a stall tactic to make you think that everything is running smoothly. It also makes you think that being charged multiple times isn't because you're being stolen from - it makes you think that it's just some kind of mistake that he's going to fix. In the meantime they've already cashed at least a couple of checks from your account. There are at least 3 or 4 addresses associated with The Hotline Report that I found on the internet. One of them, 2995 Woodside Rd., Woodside, CA was listed as a mailbox location for fraudulent dealers. They use software called ICPP, "Instant Check Payment Processing." ICPP's number is printed on the side of the checks that they cash, so a copy of them appears in our account. However, there is nobody working at ICPP - they simply have a "dead end mailbox" set up so that you think that they're actually in business. With an internet search I found a couple of items associated with ICPP including the potential owner, Tom Mudry, as well as a location in Los Angeles, CA. I have a feeling that this scam has a lot of faces to it and that there are at least a few different people, places and businesses involved. It's petty theft when it comes down to it and I assume that these guys believe that no one will ever take action against them so long as they don't steal more than a few hundred or a few thousand bucks from each "client." We're doing all that we can to try to sort through this and put a stop to this. Over time they could do some significant damage to people or companies that can't see through their scam.

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