At a time when health care costs are soaring and so are the costs of health insurance, a faxed offer of low-cost health insurance--especially one that uses the name of a well-known health insurer, such as Blue Cross--might get your attention.  At least, such faxes sent out, unsolicited, by National Alliance of Benefit Services Association (NABSA) (which, according to complainants, also uses the name Consolidated Workers’ Association and others) got the attention of enough people to have generated well over 400 report requests to the Better Business Bureau so far this year.  They’ve also resulted in 45 complaints to date from those who paid attention to the offer, believed what they read about it, and paid to enroll.

“They said it was affordable health insurance, that pre-existing conditions did not matter, and that for $199 a month, how could I go wrong?” says Sharon Glasshof, 53, an Illinois real estate broker.

Like many others who saw NABSA as their solution to unaffordable health coverage, Glasshof would soon find out just how she could go wrong.  Because of what they’d told her, including that they used Beech Street as their PPO provider, she enrolled, and her doctors submitted claims to NABSA.  But after six months with no payment, she says, it was “excuse after excuse.  I just get the runaround.”

Another client was Toni Clifton, of Valley Stream, New York.  At 47, Clifton was soon to lose her medical coverage because the restaurant for which she was general manager was closing.  So when she saw NABSA’s fax, she signed up for medical, dental and hospital insurance for herself and her husband and daughter, paying $125 to enroll and the first month’s $369 by bank debit.

But although NABSA’s plan had been presented to her as insurance, she knew as soon as her packet arrived that something was wrong.  “They had said it was with Beech Street,” she says.  “My doctor said they took Beech Street.  But the package said National Alliance, and the card said CWA.  Another card had CBM--I have no idea what that was.”

Most importantly, she learned that the plan was not insurance at all.  And even as a discount plan, NABSA offered little.  “On the phone they had said I was completely covered, with a $25 deductible.  But the package said there was a $500 a year limit--for all of us for a whole year,” says Clifton.

By then, NABSA had taken $495 from Clifton’s bank account.  Her first call to them to cancel resulted in an hour’s wait on hold, only to be told that she had to cancel in writing.  She immediately faxed them a letter, then called and again waited an hour on hold.  She closed her bank account rather than risk losing another payment to them.

Eileen Viens, too, learned of NABSA by means of an unsolicited fax, this one received by her sister.  As a 42-year-old medical assistant who could not work because of multiple illnesses and whose COBRA coverage was soon to run out, Viens signed up, also for herself and her husband and daughter.  She says the offer was “absolutely” presented to her as insurance.

“I was up front with him,” she says of the representative who enrolled her.  “I told him my daughter had been in a car accident, so she had pre-existing injuries, and she was going to need more surgeries down the road.  I have rheumatoid arthritis, lupus and fibromyalgia.  He said it shouldn’t be a problem.”

But Viens never received anything from NABSA.  Though her autoimmune illnesses predispose her to other illnesses, she couldn’t see a doctor when she became sick in February because she had no health coverage documentation and couldn’t afford the cost without the coverage.  “I knew I had pneumonia,” she says.  But NABSA “pretty much told me I was a liar, that I lied about not receiving anything.”

She has still never received anything for the $863 NABSA took from her.  The company offered to refund less than half that amount, but so far she hasn’t seen even that.

And Showcase Interiors, of Rexburg, Idaho, bought what they thought was insurance for five employees.  “We assumed this was a replacement for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.”  But Patrick Bjornn, the company’s Sales Manager says, “In a very short time we saw, from the agreements and contracts in the mail, that things were totally opposite to what they had told us.”  Bjornn immediately called NABSA to cancel.  Like other complainants, he tells of “hours of runaround, transferred calls, waiting on hold for an hour and then being hung up on, and promises of a refund check that never arrived.”

Debits to the company’s account totaled $4,542.  This company, too, ended up closing their bank account to stop the continuing debits.  And like some other complainants who worked with their banks to get their money back, Bjornn made the company’s bank aware of the fraud, and Showcase Interiors received about half their money back.  They anticipate payment of the remainder in the near future.

Other complainants mention such names as Anthem, Beech Street, Blue Cross, and First Health Net that they were led to believe would be their insurer.  Though Beech Street’s home page (on which it states that it is not an insurance company) carries an “IMPORTANT ALERT,” disclaiming any affiliation with NABSA, CWA, and a number of other companies, and cautions against providing personal information to such companies in response to mail, email, or faxes from them.

Complainants also report unauthorized bank account debits and sometimes overdraft charges resulting from them.  One complainant who expected to be charged electronically the first time only, reports his account’s being debited three times in 30 days.  He can’t reach a live operator nor can he get a response to his emails to the company.

Some complainants also report rudeness and profanity from NABSA’s representatives when they do reach a live person.

The Better Business Bureau assigns NABSA an “F” rating.  The great majority of complaints against the company have not been responded to.  Five complainants have gotten their money back, though not necessarily without a good measure of effort and outside assistance.

Had complainants known what was in store for them when they signed up with NABSA, they would probably have declined the experience and just enjoyed a migraine instead.