Canceling a temporary residency card

Hi all,

I have an unusual situation to get your input on. My wife and I are US citizens and arrived last September. We were planning to start working with a foreign-owned company here, but needed to wait about 6 months while they did some reorganization and changes to their registration. In the mean time, I heard of a company that could obtain 3-yr temporary residency cards for us. We worked in another country prior to this where work permits and residency cards were completely separate from each other, so that was my only point of reference. At the time it seemed like a good solution to avoid border runs and multiple visas, and I did not realize that the normal order of events was to get a work permit first and then a temporary residency card. I paid the fee and was happy to have what I thought was legal registration for the next 3 years.

Fast forward to today. My work permit application has been stopped as the labor department is rightly questioning how I already have a residency card with a different company without a work permit. Evidently the "service" company obtained the cards by stating that I was an investor.

I realize now that it was a mistake to get the cards in the first place, so that's water under the bridge. I want to get the original cards cancelled and switch to a 3-month visa in order to reapply for the work permit and to eventually get a valid temporary residency card with the company I'm going to be working for. My problem is that the company that got the cards for us is not responding to phone calls to try and sort this out. If they are unwilling to cancel the cards for us, what are my options? I would like to avoid having a "black mark" in my record at either the labor or immigration departments, as I am hoping to work here for at least five years.

Thanks.