Alliance For Affordable Services review: Membership Dues 1

We signed up for quasi-health insurance thru Mid-West in December of 2005, when my husband owned a small family business & the small business I worked had exorbitant health insurance rates. I got a new job at a bigger company in Feb 2007, with more reasonable health insurance rates, and we cancelled our insurance with Mid-West. Unbeknown to us, there was an additional fee for "membership" with Alliance at $40/month. I was just going thru our bank records again, and asked my husband what this $40/month charge was for membership dues from Alliance. He had no idea. I called my back & they directed me to ACH to get info on the company. ACH gave me the ph# for Alliance. I had no idea what type of services we were being charged for. I called that number & it was virtually impossible to get to a human. I kept pressing "0" to get to an operator, but it wouldn't do anything. The message said to call the number on the back of our membership card. We have no membership card. They clearly don't want to make it easy to get through to them. Finally, after the message replayed several times, I was transferred to another message which gave me the option of talking to someone. Once I spoke to the cust svc rep, I figured out what Alliance was related to. I told them that the only insurance thing I can remember from 2005 was for Mid-West, NOT Alliance. Then & only then, did the say that they were affiliated with them at that time. And that when I cancelled with Mid-West, it did not cancel this Alliance membership. I questioned if we had signed an agreement that had no time parameters & allowed them to charge our bank account for infinity. They said I have always had the right to cancel the month-to-month membership at any time and they offer discounts on various services with the membership. Here's the thing - we have had NO correspondence from them telling us what their services even are - no mail, no email, no calls, no membership card. Since we cancelled with Mid-West, they have charged our bank account $40/month, $3480 total thru June 2014. I asked for our membership to be cancelled & a refund. They said I can request a refund in writing & that it would be reviewed, then after review, would take 30-45 days for processing. After that we would receive a check or letter stating that we had been denied. They also said that Mid-West would have sent us a letter in Jan 2008 stating that Mid-West was no longer collecting fees for Alliance. Since we had cancelled our service with Mid-West the previous year, and had rec'd solicitations from them for additional services, we must have ignored this one piece of what we perceived to be "junk mail" from Mid-West. I don't remember it at all. And even then, we don't recall any correspondence from Alliance at that time, to tell us that they would now be charging us directly, or since then. These are deceitful business practices.