So basically like everyone else I got duped into buying Proactiv only to find out that the pretty price tag of $19 was only a starter into consumer hell.
Unbeknownst to me I was signing up for a program which they call "Activ Membership" or something along those lines which basically means I get an automatic deduction from my credit card every 3 months of about $75 that they take in installments over a 3 month period.
When I called customer service to cancel my account they had not only charged my account $34.96 but they had also shipped it without even an email confirmation like I had received so late before.
(I forgot to mention in between all of this, I had never actually received any confirmation or receipt through email which is what I'm accustomed to from online orders, until they finally shipped my order a couple of weeks later after I bought the first Proactiv order online.)
So I worked it out with customer service that when I receive my order I'll send it straight back and get my money back hopefully and be done with this devil of a company.
But one thing that just didn't settle well with me were two important things:
1) Customer service representatives are extremely pushy and well trained to speak at length AND speak over you to spit out enough words to confuse you and make you feel like they've answered your questions. I pretty much had to stop the first guy (His name is Joel) from talking by saying "Let me speak!"
2) I was told by customer representatives that once I clicked the box to agree to their company's Terms and Conditions that I was authorizing them to charge my account and send me orders without my consent from then on.
I called customer service to show me exactly where I could find this condition that stated I'm signing up for their "Activ Membership" and a supposed web specialist or probably just another and perhaps pushier and ruder representative spoke to me and guided me to those conditions. I know he had a computer in front of him while he helped me because he knew exactly where to tell me to go and look at the terms and conditions.
He thought he could get rid of me there but actually I read those terms and conditions and NOWHERE on those conditions did it state I would be signing my soul to the devil aka signing up for their automatic payment plan.
I asked him this and he said, "I'm sorry I can't tell you right now where exactly it is but IT IS IN THERE." So I said, "I'm sorry you just guided me and I'm pretty sure you have a computer in front of you so can you please read this with me to find out where it says so?"
THEN he jumps to the other page he guided me to that lists some basic "Activ Member Benefits" about how I can see what I signed up for there when I first ordered my product. BUT even on that page it says, "When you order a Proactiv System YOU CAN register to receive a FREE membership as an ActivMember."
Not only does it not state in the terms and conditions that I'm automatically being enrolled in the automatic payment program but it also does not state that I'm being signed up as an Activ Member.
The customer service reps that I spoke to basically all told me that they make it pretty obvious that I'm signing up for this program when I first bought my product but when reviewing the site again I think they basically lied to get rid of me. Even if they state it once in the receipt don't you think as a company they should be supplying that information online for consumers to see?
I think there may be some legal matters that someone should attend to on this issue to prevent further customers from being lured in by a pretty product and price tag?
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