Federal agents on Thursday raided the offices of a Schaumburg company whose telemarketing operation has generated hundreds of consumer complaints in the past two months.
FBI agents and Schaumburg police arrived at Rockwell Holdings Inc. with a search warrant about 9 a.m., just as the company was opening.
Agents spent most of the morning in the company’s offices at 1002 E. Algonquin Rd. Dozens of workers were sent home.
No arrests were made, said Ross Rice, an FBI spokesman in Chicago. Rice said the FBI searched the company as part of an ongoing investigation but would not describe the search further.
Rockwell officials could not be reached for comment. The Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois has received 764 complaints about Rockwell or related companies, said Steve Bernas, the bureau’s director of operations. He said the bureau has received more than 500 complaints since July 1, including 64 in the past six days.
The company names that the Better Business Bureau considers to be affiliated with Rockwell Holdings include Card Services, American Benefits Club, Rockwell Holdings Benefit Club, First Choice and First Financial Consulting.
The complaints have been forwarded from Better Business Bureaus across the country, Bernas said. He said it is the highest number of complaints the Chicago office has received on a single business in several years.
Bernas said his office contacted Rockwell and has obtained refunds for 128 customers. But he said it did not appear that Rockwell had changed its way of doing business.
“They just continued doing what they were doing,” Bernas said. “The number of complaints keeps going up.”
Most of the complaints allege that Rockwell or affiliated companies promised to send them a credit or debit card plus coupons for hundreds of dollars worth of free gasoline, clothing, trips or other items.
Consumers typically said they paid $149 or more for the card and gift package, plus a monthly fee of about $14.95, but did not receive the card or the gifts.
Illinois Atty. Gen. Jim Ryan’s office has fielded 126 complaints on 16 companies that use the same post office box in Rolling Meadows–P.O. Box 8010–that Rockwell has used, spokeswoman Toni Xenos said Thursday. Those complaints also typically allege that the companies promised a credit card and a package of gifts but did not deliver, she said.
One dissatisfied customer, Shannon Moore, 31, of Little Rock, Ark., said last week that Rockwell failed to deliver the credit card her husband had ordered.
Moore said her husband had received a call from a representative of “Card Services,” but she later found out the company’s correct name was Rockwell Holdings.
Bernas said that the bureau also got calls from people who said Rockwell was falsely claiming to be a member of the Better Business Bureau. Last month, the bureau sent Rockwell a letter demanding that it not represent itself as a member and a Rockwell official agreed, Bernas said.
