I met Steve and Marti Bolles (owners of Merchants Barter Exchange) at a Christian networking event 4 months ago. They professed to be born-again Christians like myself and I believed them. Today, my bank account is almost empty and my VISA card has over $17, 000 of unauthorized purchases on it. Someone stole my identity and ripped me off. The ONLY people I gave my banking and credit card information to was a sales rep at MBE that Steve asked to call me. I was interested in buying one of their "franchises" but abandoned when I could not raise the $75, 000 down payment they wanted. Although I forgot about them, they surely did not forget about me! The police now tell me they received over a hundred complaints about MBE going back to 2005 but when they went to file charges, MBE moved from Morristown to Pennsylvania and due to budget cuts the NJ authorities just turned over all their files to the FTC. I now see from other internet sites that MBE was prosecuted, but for me to get them into a courtroom, I'd have to spend another $15, 000 that I simply cannot afford.