Auto shopping

[ruffrecords]

Tearful wife at breakfast today after she received an email bill for £99.99 for something she does not rememeber ordering. Turns out to be an anti-ageing cream scam. I had a vigorous phone call with their American sounding customer services and managed to get the bogus subscription cancelled plus a partial refund. Apparently this is so common it is called auto shopping. It should be illegal.

Details here:

http://www.skincarehelp.co.uk/sans-age/

Cheers

Ian

 

[PRR]

> a partial refund

Did they get any money? And you (she) did not ask for it? That's theft.

Assuming credit-card, I would deny it to VISA and they normally reverse the charge (completely) pending a defense from the merchant. If they had my checking-account info, I would go talk to my bank.

If this merchant has been skirting the edge of just-legal, VISA will know and my bank probably can find-out this fact.

There has been a different scam in the US. Magazine subscription renewal billing.

 

[john12ax7]

Did she sign up for the free trial? It's a common tactic,  free trial and then automatically get charged unless you cancel.

 

[ruffrecords]

Did she sign up for the free trial? It's a common tactic,  free trial and then automatically get charged unless you cancel.

Exactly but it turned out not to be free. No mention of recurring charges until after you have filled in all your billing details including credit card number. The final page has a big Order Now button at the bottom, typical of most web sites, What you do not notice unless you scroll down to the bottom of the page is the deliberately faint small print saying you are signing up for a subscription of £99 a month starting in 15 days unless you cancel before that time.

So strictly speaking it is legal but it is clearly deliberately misleading by not telling you the truth until the end and then only in small faint writing.

Cheers

Ian

 

[john12ax7]

I think the real problem, and what should be illegal is the actual practice of fine print.  Contacts should be clear and transparent. It's the lack of transparency which is the real issue.

Would be a definite upgrade in things like politics as well.

 

[Tubetec]

Horrible horrible tactics , designed to work on more vulnerable and less cynical people in society.
I'd seriously think about contacting trading standards about this kind of scam.
Luckily my cynical and suspicious nature has prevented me from getting stung on may ocassions .
A threat of legal action against this lot would maybe be the most appropriate responce .
Tell them if it goes to court you'll be seeking damages as well as a full refund.

Im in the middle of trying to sort out a demand for money 'with menaces' from Fed-Ex on behalf of Irish Customs and excise over a prize I won in a competition ,the item made it through without charge to my doorstep ,then almost a month later a I got notification from the Feds that a bill of 30 euros was outstanding ,I argued with them and they came back with an offer to wave their own charges of 13 euros ,so now the outstanding bill is 17 euro's. Just contacted the sender to see if their willing to pay up .Kinda feels like looking a gift horse in the mouth ,but Im not liable as I didnt order this item personally .

 

[JohnRoberts]

Life is an perpetual IQ test.

The trend in modern business is to create ongoing revenue streams rather than selling single SKUs (even Apple is moving that way). Of course to be an enforceable contract the customer needs to know and agree.

I just went through some drama with my newspaper since they changed their terms and conditions to only auto renew, requiring my CC #...  I have been reading that newspaper for almost 50 years but don't want to keep paying for it after I'm dead.

I first tried to renew using a temporary CC # and their website refused that because the expiration date was so short. I tried to call their customer service and give them the temporary CC number but that didn't work. I am both cheap and stubborn so I just forgot about it...  It seems like months later the paper stopped coming so I had to do something to keep reading my news.

I found a subscription on EBAY for a fraction of what I was paying with no auto-renewal...  amusing the EBAY subscription bragged about free shipping??? but that's a different rant (there is no free lunch).

JR 

 

[ruffrecords]

Life is an perpetual IQ test.

The trend in modern business is to create ongoing revenue streams rather than selling single SKUs (even Apple is moving that way). Of course to be an enforceable contract the customer needs to know and agree.

This has been true in one form or another for a long time. Ink jet printers for example only make profit on the cartridges. Many. many  years ago I did some work for  Dymo on their label printers. Even then the business model was the slimmest of margins on the printer and large ones on the consumables.

Cheers

ian

 

[DaveP]

If it's any comfort Ian, my wife almost got caught on the same scam, but she knew what was likely after the free trial so she deliberately obtained an email from them before the trial.

The stuff was no good so she cancelled, but still had to go through some hoops and produce that email to get off the hook.

It didn't make her look any younger, but it did cure her of free trial scams!

DaveP

 

[JohnRoberts]

This has been true in one form or another for a long time. Ink jet printers for example only make profit on the cartridges. Many. many  years ago I did some work for  Dymo on their label printers. Even then the business model was the slimmest of margins on the printer and large ones on the consumables.

Cheers

ian

Thats the old blades and razor business model... but new subscription model involves virtual consumables (like music/movies).

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

Thats the old blades and razor business model... but new subscription model involves virtual consumables (like music/movies).

JR

Exactly, old theme new twist.

Micro$oft is heading that way by "renting" you Office and the like.

Cheers

Ian

 

[PRR]

Battery power tools also obey the razor-blade law. Replacement batts cost about as much as the tool did.

 

[Tubetec]

I hacked out the old NiCd cells from my Dewalt 9 volt battery pack ,and put in a nice 3 cell lipo with balanced charge connection .
Its better than new ,more torque ,more rpm ,more longevity ,only thing you need to watch is over discharging the pack . The multipin charge  connector hides inside the space in the pack where the single upright cell used live ,a little bit of ribbon attached to pull it out easily.
Only cost me 12 euros for the new cell. I know a few people who went to the dewalt shop to see if their drill could get a new battery ,they ended up handing over their perfectly good old Dewalt drill for scrap and walked away with a brand new item at full retail ,I hate to see people get played for a sucker like that .

 

[JohnRoberts]

I hacked out the old NiCd cells from my Dewalt 9 volt battery pack ,and put in a nice 3 cell lipo with balanced charge connection .
Its better than new ,more torque ,more rpm ,more longevity ,only thing you need to watch is over discharging the pack . The multipin charge  connector hides inside the space in the pack where the single upright cell used live ,a little bit of ribbon attached to pull it out easily.
Only cost me 12 euros for the new cell. I know a few people who went to the dewalt shop to see if their drill could get a new battery ,they ended up handing over their perfectly good old Dewalt drill for scrap and walked away with a brand new item at full retail ,I hate to see people get played for a sucker like that .

Be careful hacking some modern batteries...  The internal energy and potential heat could be dangerous.  I only know that I don't know enough to give good advice.
==
I had an extreme heat event with a common AA battery when the battery holder end contact pierced the battery insulation... I removed it before it got too hot, but would have made a mess... or worse.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

Battery power tools also obey the razor-blade law. Replacement batts cost about as much as the tool did.

I thought battery life would be an achilles heel hurting the resale value of EV, but I believe Tesla figured out he could sell replacement batteries with extended range performance, reducing the pain of the replacement.

JR