Mountain Business Center LLC Rebecca Bextel Withholding information from bank and charging for services not provided Jackson Wyoming

I paid for a business bank account set up in December 2015. It took them almost a year to get the account open only for it to be closed by the bank 1 month later.

Please understand this is not a complaint solely because the account was closed. Although this is unacceptable and no additional account was offered. The bank had their address on file for us as they were acting as our registered agent.

A letter dated 15th October 2016 was sent to their address for us with the information that the account would be closed on the 9th of December. 

Mountain Business Centre failed to inform us of this letter until yesterday December 1st after I spoke with the bank and they told me. I then requested a copy of the letter which was emailed to me. 

Regarding the letter/information being sent to us; Rebecca said; "It appears to us that we scanned it to you. We received a ton of these. I don’t know why yours did not go through. Maybe it bounced back or something. It was opened and in a pile of scanned letters. I am trying to sort through the “sent” folder now."

The severity of this information that was failed to be provided until yesterday is high. The impact on our business is huge and to get a response saying 'maybe it bounced back or something' is unacceptable. Why could they not ring us and let us know? 

In addition to this, a partner of the company sent us an invoice for filing our accounts (not due until Feb) and requesting that we pay $400 to continue using their address for our bank. Please see below: "The address is required for us to continue with our service. Your company has our $9 million buildings address listed physical and mailing address. This is not something that we can offer you for free. It is one of the only things that allowed you to open a bank account remotely being outside of the country. It will also be one of the only things that allows it to remain open."

In prior communication Rebecca had stated that the $400 fee for using the address was for anything OTHER than bank documents. 

The point is, I received this invoice on the 16th of November, a whole month after the bank letter was dated. So they knew our account was being closed by this point and yet there is no mention of it at all. In fact they said to allow the account to remain open I needed to pay this fee. 

A complete lie, as the account had already been positioned to be closed... and they knew this.

I replied experessing my dissatisfaction and that's when the reponses started getting ridiculous. 

Rebecca said: "I don’t know. The reason it took so long is because of how long it took to get your ITIN. I am not willing to work with you anymore. You don’t pay us a fair price like for mail forwarding and scanning."

"I have seen a few others get caught up on this and I moved their accounts but you do not even have an address to use because you never paid us for the address and this is not worth my time anymore. "

I then asked for my $450 fee to be refunded as they had failed to provide what was agreed. This is what I said:

"I have paid everything agreed in the contracts I was given by you. You told me the address/mail forwarding fee would only be applicable if I used the address for anything OTHER than bank documents.Your company seems to be a complete scam. Unless the $450 payment is back in my account within 24 hours I will be escalating this further."

Her response: "Please escalate this as much as you want. I have let you use my address. You have had it for a year. The bank closed your account. I am not willing to help you further." "I spent an incredible amount of time getting your account opened and helping you with your ITIN and EIN. I deserve to be paid for my time. Anyone would agree that I would not be expected to work for free."

I then brought up the matter of her husaband (a partner in the business) trying to bill us for services knowing full well that our account was being closed. "Your husband was trying to get money out of me claiming that your address was the only thing allowing our bank account to stay open 2 weeks ago. You had the letter from Zions bank informing us the account was being closed before this.... That screams scam to me"

Her response: "I don’t care what it screams. I was planning to move your account until all of this hassle. You were in the queue for a new account along with anyone else who received the letter but we pulled you out of the pile once we got into this with you. Jonathan did not realize you did not have mail service until the scuffle about the bill. Then I realized that I was starting all over for nothing. I wasn’t willing to do it."

Below I have copied a few other quotes from her emails to me to show how unprofessional her company is:

"Karma is gonna get you! Poor guy, no one ever exceeds in life when they act like you!"

"I can tell your blood is boiling but please look back at the emails. Your W-7 was returned to you. It took a long time for me to get to the point where I could submit your application. 

I think what is going on here is your upset because you almost had a new account. We thought we sent you the letter. We had you in the pile for a new account. Meanwhile your bill comes due and you refuse to pay for the service. Fine. I let you use the address for your original bank account but I will not continue that moving forward. Plus you never even paid the postage bill from your mail forwarding. Then you realize your account is being closed and we realize that you are not really the kind of customer we want to keep engaging with. Now what do you do? You have no options so you start threatening but secretly in the back of your mind you realize that you catch more flies with honey and you know if you have not acted so horribly we probably would have helped you. But not anymore. So you keep emailing, keep threatening, keep going. "

I then filed a complaint with BBB and responded after doing some research and finding many other complaints against her business: "Digging a little deeper it seems you have many unsatisfied customers that are in the exact same boat as us. "

This is where her replies dropped to a new low. She said: "Now that previous guy was a total a**hole that the bank wouldn't deal with anymore! At first they just designated a special banker to deal with that man but eventually they closed his account. To think: you are just like that a**hole! The second customer in five years with thousands of customers to file a complaint. But this fact remains: you are now over a barrel but business is rolling along just fine for me!