To start, I am a former customer of HLN, or Homeschool Learning Network. I joined them for the first time in January of and was with them over a years time. I never had any issues at that time.
The second time, though, things had changed. I noticed copyrights were out of date, and that members were complaining on her message boards about their credit cards being charged even though they had faxed over there cancellation notice. Seeing this I was a bit worried, but figured if I paid with Paypal that I would be able to terminate my subscription at any time. I paid the $25.90 for my first month. That included the normal $15.95 monthly fee, and $9.95 activation charge. This was on September 10. It was about 2 PST, and she states to allow 24 hrs for manual activation of all Paypal payments.By the same time Friday I was not activated, but having had good service before with HLN I was not worried. I figured they closed early, or maybe she got my payment too late, I'd wait till the weekend was over. Sunday, night came, and I was still not activated. At that time I sent an e-mail over to [email protected]. Come Monday morning, though there was no reply in my inbox, and I was still not activated. At that point I called her 877 number listed on the payment page, there was no answer of course, but I left a message anyway. Tuesday came and went, still no activation, and no reply now to my 2 phone calls and messages left.By Wednesday, I decided to try another avenue and e-mailed [email protected]. Thursday, still no reply and no access to the website I paid for, so I filed a dispute with Paypal. I decided to wait 24 hrs, the length of time requiring activation on her page to answer it before I escalated it. Friday, I had no choice but to leave it in Paypal's hands, since she was answering to no one and at this point I had no money, no services I paid for, and no contact from the owner.
While, Paypal was deciding and waiting on an answer from the seller, I decided to look around. I found that her eBay rating is 50% and many people complained about not getting the Unit Studies they had paid for, also with no contact. I also learned that while she is CEO, she employs others, and was savvy enough to be mentioned in Time magazine and had been the founder and developer of EducationWorld.com.
In any event, my decision came today... Paypal founded in my favor. However, while Ms. Carnabuci of Homeschool Learning Network.com couldn't be bothered to go online and activate my account, or reply to my e-mails or Paypal, she did at some point log onto her internet, log onto Paypal itself and transfer any funds in her Paypal account (including mine) into her personal bank account, so that they could not be recovered for refunds.
I realize that this is only $25.90, but HLN's membership list is over 230. I am on that list, and never was activated - so how many other people has this happened to? She has obviously abandoned her website, which gets positive PR if you look on the web, but is still taking families hard earned money. Even worse is knowing that many families like myself are barely squeaking buy in these tough economic times. That $26 could have bought my family of 10 dinner for one night!
It has now become important to me to get through to those who are considering using her "services", to reach out to those who once wrote positive things endorsing her site, and to hit all the homeschool review sites so that people will know to stay away. I have already been in contact with the Hawaii Better Business Bureau. I found out that she has 9 complaints against her, and that's with just 1 of her 3 addresses! She has an "f" rating, and only ever responded to 1 of the 9 reports. Today, I made #10. This was my next stop, hoping that when people Google HLN, or Homeschool Learning Network that my report on here will pop up warning other people.
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