I signed up for a GreenZap account in May of 05. Greenzap offered to give me Web Cash for referring members and said I could use the web cash to make on-line purchases. I referred several members and my referrals started growing. Their website stated that I would receive $5 in webcash for each member I referred or if I became a gold member by paying $100 each referral would be worth cash and each gold referral would be worth approximately $20 cash and $5 webcash. It said I could simply withdraw the cash to my bank account.
On 6/16/05 their websites stated I had over 20 referrals and 6 of them had paid to upgrade to gold. It also said if I upgraded to gold I would instantly get $123 cash which I could have transferred to my bank account immediately and I would have over $200 in web cash. I was planning to purchase a lot from Amazon.com which they listed as their partner side accepting webcash. I also read in their T&C that I could cancel my upgrade at any time before the money is actually withdrawn. So I initiated the upgrade. Then I was told that I would not have access to any of my money until 7/1/05. I immediately e-mailed them and asked them, per their terms and conditions to cancel the transaction and that I had made it because it said the upgrade was instant.
I tried to make my purchase on Amazon.com and they did not accept GreenZap. I e-mailed Amazon.com and they said they will never take greenzap and have been fighting to get greenzap to remove their logo and stop saying they are a partner site. I e-mailed GreenZap again and never heard back.
Finally on 7/1 greenzap said they were calculating my rewards and it would be 1 week. Once the week was up I looked at my account and half of my referrals had all disappeared and all of the gold referrals were gone. I had $0 cash and only $58 in webcash. I believe all of the gold members were fakes just to get me to upgrade to gold and give them $100. They had still not withdrawn any money from my bank account, but I noticed their terms and conditions had changed and that now all upgrades are final and there will be no refunds despite it saying prior that I could cancel the upgrade at any time before the transaction occurs. I e-mailed again and asked them to cancel the withdrawal and remove my account number from their system. On 7/13 they withdrew $100 from my bank account.
I finally gave in and filed a report with the BBB. They responded and will still not give me a refund. I am filing a fraud report with my bank, but I do not know if this will actually help and am not sure what to do.
Their response is as follows:
Mr. {Me},
I completely understand what you are saying. You were promised to receive rewards for every free member and for every gold member that you referred to GZ. Your pending $123.00 Cash rewards was based on the # of people in your community that would upgrade to gold, which they may do in the near future. This was clearly explained on the GZ website before the rewards calculation process. The difference in your account today and what was stated a few weeks ago is based on the number of people who actually upgraded to gold throughout your community. As more and more people upgrade to gold throughout your community, your account will continue to grow. Every time someone in your community upgrades to gold, you will receive your cash and WebCash rewards.
If you continue to promote your Zap ID, you will continue to earn the appropriate rewards. Your WebCash has value and can be spent on GZ transaction fees or can be spent in the GZ Storez, which will be released in a few weeks from now.
In order to operate our business, we must have a clear set of rules and procedures in place. We assume that you, along with every other GreenZap member, has read and agreed to our User Agreement, before moving forward. Our User Agreement clearly states:
Gold Account Refund Policy. The $100 Gold account upgrade is non-refundable. The $100 is instantly converted to WebCash and deposited to your account. It is yours to send or spend on transaction fees and with GreenZap preferred merchants.
We are currently building GZ functionality with a hundreds of preferred merchants, where you will also be able to spend your WebCash. This is in addition to the GZ Storez. We do value you as a member and will continue to upgrade the quality of our service that we provide.
I hope this answers your question. Have a terrific day.
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