Like others, I signed up for a sample of free hoodia. This whole thing is a shame, because hoodia is a wonderful herb, it will truely kill your appetite if you take a gram or so. Anyway, after careful review of their terms and conditions, which did not mention at all an ecurves membership, I signed up for the free hoodia, which I received. Shortly after that I cancelled within the cancellation period and was given a cancellation #. My following credit card statement showed the shipping (5.95) for the free hoodia sample and a membership for "escurves", the same outfit as "ecurves".
After calling the # on my credit card statement, the rep basically repeated what everyone else has said, I indicated I would contact my credit card company and have them reverse the charges, which they have already agreed to do. She then said they would turn it over to a collections agency. Fine! Let them try. I am going to cancel my card and have a new one issued (a minor inconvenience), write a letter describing the whole incident to my credit card company and enclose a copy of the terms and conditions from their website when I ordered the sample, which has changed since I ordered the hoodia back at the end of Feb. I am also going to enclose several pages from this website where difficulties with the affiliated companies are described.
When dealing with collections agencies of possible criminal companies, my approach is to tell them when they call you, for example in this case, that I am putting a package together for the atty general of Utah, the 2 senators of Utah, the Federal Trade Commission and the FBI, and that all transactions related to this must be in writing. Tell them if they want something from you, they should write a letter to you describing what they want, and then hang up. Make them put it in writing so you can use it against them later, esp. If you have a copy of the terms and conditions that does not disclose what they are doing. Another approach when they harass you is to tell them "hold on a minute", set the phone down and walk off. Use their tactics against them.
Good luck to all. Hopefully this will turn into a class action suit, but then the only ones that benefit will be the lawyers. It will, however, put someone out of business, after which they will just declare bankruptcy and reorganize under a different name (thank you george bush for the loopholes). The only way to really put them out of business is to find their headquarters (leader/ceo of novapointe?) and go "postal" (not a particularly recommended course of action).
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