Horizon Gold / Horizon Card Services review: dishonest business practices! 232

I applied for what i thought was an actual credit card. Was happy when i was approved but when the card came with the paperwork it is actually a card for credit with an on-line company. I am not a dumb person, the ad and application were made to seem like something other than what it is. I am sending it back un-used and hope i can get this removed from my credit... You can't even access them on-line with the website given to cancel the card.

Horizon gold Card is listed with the fake internet banks Hallmark Bank. They also have the Compass card Visa... yeah as if.all the info is below. This ### is a greasy piece of ### lawyer in the Turks and Caiaos Ilands of www.swannlaw.tc/. The Turks and Caiaos Ilands are known for FRAUD
google it... like I did this ###ed up card and Fake Bank. I reported them to the Justice Dept. ### Br**n F.J. Trowbridge... this piece of ### day will come !

www.swannlaw.tc
pmck@swannlaw.tc
Telephone: [protected]
Facsimile: [protected]
Cell Phone: [protected]
Brian F. J. Trowbridge — Partner
btrowbridge@hallmarktrust.tc

http://www.scamfraudalert.com/f133/directory-fake-banks-1132/

Hallmark Bank NA
Hallmark Finance http://www.hallmark-online.com
Hallmark Trust Finance
Hallmark Trust Finance Bank

http://www.fsa.gov.uk/pages/Doing/Regulated/Law/Alerts/internet.shtml Hallmark Bank NA Hallmark Finance & Savings Bank (at hfshuk.50megs.com) Hallmark Trust

thehorizonoutlet.com

Email: info@hallmarktrust.tc
Telephone: [protected]
Facsimile: [protected]

Contact: Greg Hurd, Millicent Grant or Brian Trowbridge

TCI mailing address:

Hallmark Bank & Trust Ltd.
PO Box 656, Tropicana Plaza
Providenciales
Turks & Caicos Islands
British West Indies

Hallmark Bank & Trust Ltd.
PO Box 325 Station 'A'
Etobicoke Ontario
Canada M9C 4V3

My wife just received this card in the mail today. It was posted on a little flash card sized advertisement with an approval code. I noticed that I did not see a Visa or Mastercard logo. I stopped in her in mid-process of filling out the online application. I decided to stop her and Google it first. This is the first site that I came across.

Let me say "Thank You" for your comments and your input on this company. Needless to say, she did NOT continue the application. I am glad there are people who decided to speak out and warn others on this. Hell has no fury like ANYONE scorned.

Thanks again to everyone!

You have to watch these people they say something but means something else.

First off all the people that think that this card is a scam, it is not. It is a legal, valid company that is the United States in PA. It has nothing to do with the Hallmark bank at all. All these people who are doing research are not doing it right. Before you can apply for the card you must read the terms and conditions. It never says that it is a visa or mastercard. The good thing about this card is that even if you do not use it, it still builds your credit. Horizon is its own company that does not affiliate with any other bank. So before people start complaining read the terms and conditions!

I thought I was getting a Horizon Gold MasterCard and when I recieved it today(09/11/2007), there wasn't even a Visa or Mastercard Logo on the card, come to find out it is a on-line store full of garbage. I payed them through my checking account 79.95 for a mastercard, not a on-line store with junk on it!I sent a E-mail to feedback@thehorizonoutlet.com asking for my refund and to close the account... Haven't heard nothing yet!

I am sorry I understand how aggrivated you feel but I was also offered this card and i read there terms and never once did it mention visa or mastercard in it. I guess that goes to show some people should actually READ the terms for things it isnt there falt you guys do not read and they do report to the credit places as they say which is nice if you have bad credit or none.

I got mine in today and I am SO glad I checked it out! It looked a little suspicious because it did not include the Mastercard/Visa logo like normal credit cards do. I'm so glad you posted about this, Denese. I have just let a lot of people know about this company just in case they are targeted.

I received this postcard from Horizon and thought there is more to this and after reading all the compliants I shredded the postcard. I want to commend all of the postings because it is totally straight to the point and glad I didn't even thought about signing up for the credit card. Crooked people in this world today!

I received my little postcard in the mail about a week ago. I decided to check it out today and this is what I came up with from searching google.

I too did not notice the lack of a Visa or Mastercard logo.

I love you guys for posting these comments.

I'm glad I had the opportunity to check with Google. This advertisement card is going straight into the trash can. Thanks Google for the Complaint Board.

I truly agree with complaints, I thought this was credit card to help build your credit. Now I am out of 79.95. How can I get my money back, also is there a way that we can have this company removed from this site so that no other person will be used.

Thanks to all of you for your posts. I got the Horizon gold post card in the mail today and it is already ripped to shreds. Thanks again for saving me some real headaches.

I have complained more than once... I like the rest would like my money back. And not have any more taken out of my bank account... As a matter of fact I am going to advise my bank this very thing...

I thought I had already posted a complaint and just went back through these and found one... I had called several times to customer service and was told to go online... From online... I was again told to go back to customer service for further help... And yet again told to go to the online site... My son bought one thing and had it not been for his collection and not wanting to go through god only knows what to return it we would have... But I have complained many times and I to want my money back...

I agree that it's a con. I called to cancel when I realized it was not a credit card like Visa or Mastercard. I told them and wanted to cancel and wanted my money back. When I insisted I was transferred to another customer service rep. Instead of closing my account they said they would up my $ amount to 1000.00. I do not want any upfront fee taken out of my account and I do not want to be charged a monthly fee just to have this card stuck in my wallet, never to be used. They would not work with me. When they refused to cancel I thought I would look at what they have to offer. I emailed them to get my login information and they never got back with me. If I have a fee that has been charged to my account-I WANT IT BACK IMMEDIATELY!

I agree that it's a con. I called to cancel when I realized it was not a credit card like Visa or Mastercard. I told them and wanted to cancel and wanted my money back. When I insisted I was transferred to another customer service rep. Instead of closing my account they said they would up my $ amount to 1000.00. I do not want any upfront fee taken out of my account and I do not want to be charged a monthly fee just to have this card stuck in my wallet, never to be used. They would not work with me. When they refused to cancel I thought I would look at what they have to offer. I emailed them to get my login information and they never got back with me. If I have a fee that has been charged to my account-I WANT IT BACK IMMEDIATELY!

Hate to say it but that's exactly why I never give out my bank account information for ANY reason. I was just about to sign up for this card but I decided to research it a little more first. I was going to use a prepaid credit card to sign up with no way to track it back to my personal bank account. That way, if I didn't load the card they could not charge the monthly fee. Now, after what I've read, I'm not going to bother with the so-called "credit" card.

I just got a card today saying i got approved for a $500 limit. I googled it and found it a scam too. There is also another site that is a big scam and they almost got me. Its creditlinegoldcard.com Never sign up without looking up the integrity of the company.

Here is what I don't get... if you are applying for something and are putting your credit card, debit card, or checking/savings account information, what is it that you think you are putting it in there for? Looks? We have become a generation of people who abuse credit. If you were looking for a Visa or Master Card why didn't you google search that and get the offers?

Here is what I read in the Terms and Conditions. The second paragraph down stated the cancellation policy. Three days to cancel from the day of enrollment to receive a full refund. From day 4 through 30 the is a $20.00 cancellation fee. Gives the address and phone number to be able to do it. Look it up. It's not in "fine print".

I counted at least 3 times where it stated it can only be used exclusively on our online shopping site through out the T & C. Also stated in CAPITAL letters, we are not a visa or master card.

NOT READING THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS DOES NOT EXEMPT YOU FROM THEM. (THAT YOU CLEARLY SAID THAT YOU READ, UNDERSTOOD, AND AGREED TO!)

I will leave you with this...

It's amazing that you will read all these comments but not T & C's when you are putting your bank info in. Kinda makes you think.

Thanks for your time.

I really just want to express my gratitude to you guys for sounding the alarm for me. I was able to contact them before they even sent it out and demanded a refund to my checking account. Received funds back this morning. Woo hoo. I got so caught up in being "approved" for a $500 line of credit that I didn't even notice that there was no Visa/Mastercard logo. Thanks for the heads up.

To all the people who thought that they were scammed. I am one of the people who actually received an invitation to apply for their card in my email... I have actually read the terms and agreement, apparently that everyone else has failed to do. It is always important to read the terms and agreements. We all are responsible adults, who should take the time to read and reread. Isn't that what the teachers have taught us in school when we make a mistake on our term papers. I feel sorry for those of you who spent 79.95 to receive this card, but you also have yourself to blame for not reading the terms and condition before knowingly pressing submit on that page. For future references, if a card company wants you to pay a fee upfront, PLEASE READ THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE SIGNING IT.

I am ready for your negative comments to this one and I do not and will not work for Horizon, because my credit is also bad.

I hate to admit this but, I used to work for horizon gold...and YES they are a RIP OFF...the card is actually activated from the time you sign up and even if you dont use the card they WILL charge you a monthly fee. The merchandise is shoddy and can be found at any dollar store. My advise is to cancel the card immediately if you have ordered it. And when you do cal in to cancel dont let them tell you that there is a 20.00 calcel fee all you have to do is threaten a chargeback with your bank or credit card company and DEFINITELY make sure you get and write down your cancellation confirmation number. If it has been over 30 days since you ordered your card they will not give you a refund whether you used the card or not. You will have to go to the Better Business Bureau and your Attorney General...THESE PEOPLE MUST BE STOPPED...I was actually "suspended" for telling the customers the truth abouth the card...I am not a disgruntled ex-employee cuz i got a much much better job where the customers arent ripped off...PLEASE BEWARE of this and other companies like it

I am also a victim of this junk card. I should have followed my first instinct, which was to trash the trash. Curiosity lead me to the website about two weeks after receiving this postcard saying I was pre-approved. The absence of a major credit card logo did send up a red flag however on the site I did see these logos and I did not see that you could only use this card on horizon junk yard site. When I received the card it was much of a surprise. I feel like I can spot these scams. Since I applied for the card during the holiday season I think I chose not to put all of my feelers out there. Even a blind women should have seen this was obviously a horrible scam. I was charged $89.95 worth of fees and my debit card was going to be debited 14.95 e monthly. I can not quite remember everything on the site that made me relax a little about the card not being legit, but I am sure that visa logo was put there on that page for a purpose. I question once the application was completed and submitted that I was not told if I was getting visa or mc. When I made my payment through bank of America these crooks mad it seem as if they were affiliated with this bank and I could trust that shopping with this card was safe. I was told by horizons cust. service that I would only get back a portion of my refund. I told them that was not acceptable and I would be notifying my bank. The customer service supervisor threaten not to refund anything if that was the action I chose. This threat was made even after she had gave me the cancellation num. I was also offered a $500 limit increase and still get half of my refund back if I would not cancel. Well good luck to us all. I would like to know of any actions taken toward this company.

Peace and Blessings.

My Lord...

What a group of bumbling ###s.

A credit card is a credit card - plain in simple. Visa is Visa. MasterCard is MasterCard. Store cards are store cards. But they are all credit cards.

HorizonGold offers a STORE card, just as most major retailers do. But, it seems that they cater to people who have bad credit.

Do only stupid people have bad credit? Is that what's happening here?

Where in their advertising do you ###s see the word "Visa?" "MasterCard?" Where on the image of their 'card' do you see a logo?

They've done nothing wrong, you have no grounds to sue (or even to complain). If you're dumb enough to apply for a STORE CARD when you're looking for a Visa/MasterCard, you're also too dumb to be applying for credit in the first place.

Idiots.

I received my preapproval credit card postcard in the mail and I too was excited because I am trying to rebuild my credit.
So I paid the $80.00 fee last week and waiting for my card.
Now I wish I would have checked into this further. I am going to call and get my money back. I havent received the card yet.
So does anyone have any idea who I need to call and a phone number?
Thanks
Trisha

I to received a letter in the mail about helping me with my credit. But as I was filling out the information you ask for $79.95 I did not accept. I canceled my order you and you take the money out of my account. You send me this card that is no good to me. So I have talk with my bank about this they looking into it. So please send me back my money.

I agree with all of the complaints. I wish I went here first before getting suckered into this terrible card. I went out on their website and was very disappointed in the stuff. In fact, I let one of the customer service reps talk me into purchasing a couple of items so I could establish credit. The outlet is not computer friendly. You have to click on to every page just to get to what you want. They don't have a search bar so you can minimize your search. Some of the outlets have 30 pages, this means you have to click each page until you see what you want or don't want. I purchased a camera, it broke the first day. I meant to send it back, but was it worth the postage? The quality of the stuff they are selling is very cheap, not worth the price. I too was upset I had to use my charge card to pay for the shipping and handling. I also don't like they have excess to my bank account which means they take their payment. If they had nice quality appliances, clothes, electronic items, I would not mind purchasing the stuff. It's not worth the time to sit at your computer for hours at a time looking at pages and pages of over priced junk. I too will be canceling my card.

I just received an email offering this card, and as I always do, I immediately ChaCha'd it (another great search engine), and found this site, which of course I'm glad I did. It truly saved me a lot of time in further investigation. Now I will always check this site as well as the other site I use to investigate products and services before trying, which is [redacted].com. Another thing that interested me, is during my search I discovered that it seems they are using the name of an actual MasterCard cc that's being offered, but it seems like they just reversed the name, the other card is called the Gold Horizon MasterCard, and their website says its a secured card with a min. of $2000 deposit, but I chose not to investigate that one further because I have no intention of getting it, so not sure if that one is really legit or not either. I just wonder if Horizon Gold used this name on purpose in hopes that we consumers would think it was the other card. If so, then that really makes it deceptive, as opposed to their original offer, which I think they just hope people don't read the fine print and/or investigate.

My wife receive this horizon gold card in the mail last night. Since im a goggle freak i googled horizon gold fraud just to c who these people really are and if there has been any complaint against them needless to say i came upon this website. There's too much complaint against them so i ripped it up for her. I did a little research on them and this is for the people who have ben scam, here goes. Horizon gold address is 1707 Warren Road Indiana, PA 15701 US. Guess who also resides at this address too, Reliant Holdings Guess who owns horizon gold www.reliantholdings.com and there phone #[protected] this website was created on 12-Apr-2005 the email associated with the website is rekane@reliantholdings.com www.thehorizonoutlet.com Record created on 03-Feb-2006. they havent been in the bussiness long enough in my opinion

Thanks to all who have taken the time to write their complaints regarding this company. I just received an unsolicited card in the mail, went to the website, and since they wanted my email first, thought I would do research first. I found all of your comments, and I was glad that I didn't divulge even my email address. Thanks again.

THEY ALSO SENT ME A PREAPPROVE CARD IN THE MAIL. BUT WHEN I APPLIED MY CREDIT CARD DID'NT GO THROW. THEY ASK ME TO USE A DIFFERENT PAYMENT. SO I JUST GOT OFF THE SITE AND WENT TO BED. 3/1 THE TOOK 79.95 OUT OF MY ACCOUNT AND I DID'NT APPROVE [censored]. I TRIED TO CALL THEM BACK AND THEY ARE CLOSED ON SATURDAY. BUT THEY SURE DID'NT HAVE A ###ING PROBLEM WITH TAKING MY MONEY ON A SATURDAY. I CAN'T WAIT UNTIL MONDAY. THEY ARE SO THRISTY.

You can have a top-notch rated attorney (by a public traded NYSE company) for $35.95/month to handle situations like this, plus much, much more and have ID Theft monitoring and full restoration.

This would WIPE YOU OUT and cost thousands otherwise.

Email me to find out more information on this month-to-month membership that can save you thousands of dollars on this type and many other legal issues.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I also signed up for the card - I almost submitted the last part of the application - then I realized that it was only for online purchases. The phone number was really hard to find. When I called - the lady that answered the phone would not give me her name - nor would she send an e-mail verifying my cancellation. The is a very dishonest, deceiving practice. The card that is sent as a mailer implies that there will be $500 unsecured dredit available. Nothing on the mailer says anything about only having the ability to buy things from an "online store". This is criminal. I caught it just in time - but something needs to be done about this and other companies that follow similar practices.

Thanks soo much for the heads up! I'm really glad I found this before I signed up. I just got the card in the mail 10 minutes ago. I will NOT be signing up! Thank you VERY much for making this known :)
Ps- I hope you get your $20 back.

I also received a post card in the mail and when i went on line to put in the code they took over o hundred and fifty dollars, after receiving my card i checked there web site and was very disappointed they initally told me it was a real credit card yet you have to purchase there stuff which is not worth it, everyone has to contact there credit bureau but the number listed on the back of the horizonal card is [protected].

Just got junkmailed this card application, and there is ZERO mention of Mastercard or Visa anywhere in their literature, and the miniature replica of the card they show also has no logo to it.

If you have bad credit and are trying to re-establish, you're going to get these kind of offers. They don't charge outrageous interest, but the markup on the stuff they sell makes up for it. IF they really do report transaction history on their card to TransUnion (and that's a big "IF"), then this really isn't any better or worse than "secured" MC/Visa cards at 25% interest. If your credit really is this bad, you gotta start somewhere.

I went to this Horizon Card website and saw that they wanted your checking account details. That in itself was RED FLAG to me. I shut that website down immediately and then looked for reviews and found these. Thank God I never proceeded.

They will charge your card monthly. I tried to cancel this and they would not refund my monthly payment which actually was pending in my account. If you get this card...throw it away. You really can't use the items they want to sell. They charge twice as much for the items...then when you try and cancel they won't refund the monthly charge...

Read their terms and conditions. They're quite plain and clear. If you are so naive to think that you can just fill out an online application and get a Visa or Mastercard with no credit check, then you need to pull your head out of the sand and do some reading. In addition, many people are not seeing the big picture here: If the card reports to Transunion, it looks just like a Visa or Mastercard. That's an amazing product, especially when there's no credit check. That builds credit. Those who felt fooled: You fooled yourself by being ignorant about how the credit system works.