Destiny Telecom International, 100 Hegenberger Road, Oakland, is charged with violating the state's Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act.
"Consumers have a right to receive the goods and services they pay for -- anything short of that is fraud," Ryan said.
The suit alleges that the defendant charged Illinois consumers between $100 and $1,384 for "distributorships" in the company's multi-level marketing plan promoting long-distance calling cards. Illinois consumers who became Destiny "distributors" and bought and sold the cards later found the cards were useless. The defendant allegedly failed to pay MCI Communications Corporation for outbound and inbound telephone calling services which rendered the cards inactive. Consumers say their repeated requests for refunds were ignored.
Ryan is seeking a permanent injunction, restitution, costs of the investigation, a civil penalty of $50,000 and an additional penalty of $50,000 for each act found committed with intent to defraud.
SOURCE Illinois Attorney General's Office
Our second anniversary meeting was a great success. Lots of discussion and sharing took place. Some trading also occurred. We got price guides from TW Phonecards and United America Cards. An additional highlight of the meeting were free phonecards in commemoration of the 2nd anniversary. A nice sample of cards were provided by Ann Marie Olsen of Precision Telecom Systems Incorporated. Ann Marie included a One-of-a-Kind 2nd anniversary card. We all wanted it, but agreed to let Tom and Susan keep it for the club archives. Also of interest was the PTSI card and the One Day at a Time angel card. A neat batch of 5th anniversary Jersey Aquarium cards was also included. Additional free cards were provided by Terry Windholz of TW Phonecards and Grapevine Telecards.
Terry packaged the cards in sealed envelopes which were left sealed to make decisions difficult. (Coincidentally I brought my Halloween cards to share with the group. It was too light to see them glow in the dared.) Due to the large number of cards we will keep the Grapevine cards for our next meeting. Note winners at end of posting.
A good deal of trading took place - some for Show cards from TeleWorld 97, some for promotional cards. Many of us improved our collection tonight.
Maria Rublee became our latest new member. She has been collecting phonecards since last January and has a nice collection. Many of her cards have been collected as a result of her other past time - refund offers. Maria has learned a lot about phonecards in a short time. It was nice to put a face on the name I've seen online for about 6 months.
Art Becker brought a bunch of stuff. He just returned from a trip. We also learned he bought a house - in Las Vegas. Our next meeting will be his last local meeting as he plans to move early next year. Without Art we wondered if the oldest, biggest, most respected phonecard club would be the same...perhaps we'll have a meeting in Vegas one time.
I brought four MCC Catalogs I bought to the meeting. They sold out quickly. We discussed how many phonecards there are and how many were still omitted. All in all it was received as a terrific boost to our hobby. We also looked at the December issue of MoneyCard Collector -- now the "hobby's only printed price guide." The NYNEX article was interesting. Most seem to choose to keep the NYNEX cards they have. It'll be interesting to discover how many people turn in the cards. We also enjoyed Steve Eyer's show card summary. Those of us who went to the show got many of the cards, but not all.
The next meeting will be on January 14th 1998, weather permitting at the same Pentagon City Mall. Snow date 1/21/98. It'll be our farewell to Art Becker meeting. New members are always welcome, as are contributions to our door prizes.
This meetings winners:
Richard Brook -- Republican National Convention'96 $10 courtesy of TW Phonecards
June Lee -- CIBA Vision 10 minutes free Proof Card courtesy of TW Phonecards
Art Becker -- PTSI cards two live and 5 samples courtesy of PTSI
Maria Rublee -- Jersey Aquarium Set and 5 samples courtesy of PTSI
Chuck Corneilius -- Bettie Page autographed pinup card - courtesy of TW Phonecards
Kendra Hershey -- PTSI cards two live and 5 samples courtesy of PTSI
Del Deligianis -- Unocal 76 Proof courtesy of TW Phonecards
Susan Zelinski -- PTSI cards two live and 5 samples courtesy of PTSI
Our founder, Tom Zelinski, stayed home to wait for the cable guy! I gave Susan two boxes of Tetley Tea to bring home. Minus the phone cards of course.
Respectfully submitted,
Del Deligianis
A new phonecard from Gazelle Telecard has been produced to serve as a convenient reference tool orienting callers in the transition from Western Washington’s old single area code (206) to the addition of two new area codes, (253 and 425)
The front of the card features a color-coded map showing the respective boundaries of the three area codes superimposed over a muted photograph of Mt. Rainier. The cards are designed to be FIN-packed, and include an insert listing the affected telephone number prefixes within each area code.
250 fifteen minute cards were issued, and the long distance carrier is Cable & Wireless. They expire in April, 1998
Contact Gazelle Telecard at 206 935-3576, or e-mail metalcore@aol.com for further information.
A card has been issued as the first of Gazelle Telecard’s "Seattle Skyline" series, which will eventually include several unique phonecards, each featuring an original image by a local artist depicting a skyline scene in the Seattle area.
While there is certainly no shortage of prepaid phonecards with spectacular images of photogenic Seattle and environs, the use of a painting rather that a photograph distinguishes Gazelle’s initial offering along this popular theme.
250 fifteen minute cards were issued, and the long distance carrier is Cable & Wireless. They expire in April, 1998
Contact Gazelle Telecard at 206 935-3576, or e-mail metalcore@aol.com for further information.
From: Maria Rublee
From: Maria Rublee
Until Next Week,
Alan
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