I sent a detailed complaint letter to the New Jersey Attorney General’s office about a company doing business in their state which, it seems clear, is knowingly committing fraud against consumers on an ongoing basis.
My letter contained all of the information that the AG’s office could possibly need to investigate the company in question.
They apparently forwarded my complaint to the Department of Consumer Affairs of Ocean County, New Jersey. Hey, Attorney General Paula Dow, it’s nice to see you passing the buck instead of doing your job and investigating large-scale fraud!
The Ocean County DCA sent me a form letter and a complaint form to fill out and send back. There isn’t a single piece of information requested on the form which I had not already provided in my letter. The letter said that only after I sent back the form would they “review the information to determine whether we have jurisdiction to process the complaint.”
I called the investigator listed on the form and told him that (a) every question on the form was already answered in my letter; (b) I had already received a refund from the company and had written to them only to encourage them to investigate the company to prevent others from being ripped off; and (c) I had no intention of wasting my time and money sending back their form.
The investigator responded, “We can’t investigate your complaint without a signed form,” to which I responded, “My letter was signed. If you’d rather enforce bureaucratic red tape than investigate criminals, that’s your choice, but I’m all done here,” and hung up.
Hey, Ocean County DCA Director Stephen Scaturro, It’s nice to see that your investigators are so dedicated to preventing consumers from committing the unforgivable sin of notifying you of large-scale fraud without using the proper form!
“NG government?”, Was that supposed to be “NJ”?
Yup. Fixed. Tnx.
I faxed copies of this blog posting to both Paula Dow and Stephen Scaturro. Not that I expect it to do any good or anything, mind you.