I know this a long report, but I fought them for over a month, so I promise it's interesting
I subscribed to Wholesale Marketer on 10/30/04 to drop ship electronics for $4.95 a month. I found their prices to be well above the going price on eBay, so I ended up never placing an order, but I kept the subscription because it was cheap, and I had access to descriptions should I need them later.
On 4/11, I received an email from them. The subject was "New Improvements and Lower Membership Pricing!" What does that mean to you? Remember that answer, we will discuss that later. Here is the first paragraph from that email:
"Wholesale Marketer is pleased to announce that we are lowering our membership prices to just $29.95 per month for all warehouses. We are also adding a new advanced product search and a full suite of enhanced Seller Tools that will further enable our members to be more successful."
I wasn't subscribed to all warehouses, just the electronic one, so that email didn't pertain to me. Two months later, I realized that my rates had gone up from $4.95 to $29.95. If you look at it on a percentage basis, that over a 500% increase.
As it turns out, that email I quoted has another interesting paragraph:
"As a result of this study, Wholesale Marketer has decided to provide access to all warehouses by simplifying and standardizing our membership pricing. Effective immediately, you will have access to ALL of our warehouses, so start browsing around to see the many other products you can start selling today!"
The previous quoted paragraph was found surrounded by three pages of CRAP that I didn't take the time to read. Remember the subject of that email? Isn't the subject supposed to reflect and summarize the email? Does it make sense that they jacked up my subscription fees after sending me an email with "New Improvements and Lower Membership Pricing!" in the subject!? I don't think so!
In the end, they got $50 out of me that I did not authorize. I could not get them to refund the money because the email did indirectly state in that one paragraph that MY fees were going to skyrocket and NOT decrease. Their user agreement also stated that they could change the fees at any time with out prior notice, so I lost, but here is the final question:
Even though they were within legal boundaries, would you want to be subscribed to a company that dances around the facts to get more money out of YOU? If you're going to ignore my advice and do business with Wholesale Marketer anyway, WATCH YOUR BILLING STATEMENTS to make sure they don't rip YOU off!
One more thing: On a scale of 1 to 10, their customer service was a 0. They refused my refund and didn't respond to any of my calls after that. They just said no and ignored me since. As a business owner, I have never treated my customers that way, even if they are in the wrong.
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