On February 18 MwiGalleria made an unauthorized check card purchase from my wife's account of $139.95. The purchase was not discovered until March 14 when a number of overdraft notices began to be received prior to that date.
After researching MwiGalleria on the internet and reading the other reports about this company filed on usacomplaints.com, we immediately called MwiGalleria, using the contact phone number on the bank statement. The number connected us with a company representative located in Montreal, Canada, who at first was hesitant to consider refunding the purchase, claiming that my wife had authorized the transaction by responding to a phone call offer on January 13th for something identified as "Multiple Products". The representative also indicated that we had received a confirmation notice for this purchase in the mail, but that we had probably thrown it away as junk mail.
At that point we firmly denied any such authorization, demanded that a full refund be made immediately and that we intended to pursue the matter against MwiGalleria in the class action law suit with Farrow, Bramson & Plutzik, LLP in Walnut Creek, California. The representative immediately told us that the refund would be made to our account within five working days. We warned them that if we did not see such refund made within that time, by March 21, that we would further file complaints with the local law enforcement agencies.
That same day we also visited the bank manager with our research and statements in hand and were sucessful in filing a claim which will reverse all overdraft charges which had occured from the date of the purchase transaction. To safeguard against any further spurious purchases charged by MwiGalleria (or any other of the Mwi businesses) the bankcard was cancelled and a new card issued, thus preserving the actual bank account.
In tracing the series of events which led to this fiasco we discovered a connection between the Leslie Sansome and The Firm series of video workout tapes that my wife had purchased over the internet in January. These two product lines are represented by an outfit named GoodTimes Entertainment. They can be found on the internet. We had problems with them as well. During this period of time GoodTimes continued to send on three separate occasions unwanted workout tapes and vitamins, which we sent back.in each case these deducted purchases were credited back to our account. My wife had phoned GoodTimes in each case stating that she did not want any further products sent to her, but they continued sending them anyway.
We contacted GoodTimes on the same day we talked with MwiGalleria and told them very strongly that we wanted all activity stopped, indicating to them in the process that we would be further communicating with them on how Mwi obtained the check card number for unauthorized purchases.
There must be a connection between GoodTimes Entertainment and MemberWorks, Inc, which we feel may be revealed through the Class Action law suit investigation. We intend to filed with Mr. Bramson in this matter in helping to prevent further bad business practices of this type.
I will follow up this posting with information on whether or not MwiGalleria credits back our account as promised by 3/21.
In our case we feel that we are now protected from further withdrawals on our account by ther elimination and cancellation of the check card number. Our bank is Wells Fargo and we closely coordinated our response to these problems with them, receiving very good customer service in the process. We both also feel that we could not have made as good an approach in refuting these people had it not been for the information contained and sponsored by usacomplaints.com.
Joseph
Antelope, California
U.S.A.
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