My wife noticed an unknown billing of $13.95 on our debit card but disregarded the charge for a couple of months, thinking that it might have been something I had purchased and not told her about. After seeing the charge a fourth month, we finally had a chance to talk about it and I let her know that I had no idea what it was. The monthly statement did not contain a phone number, so I went to my bank to get more information. They gave me the name of the company and a phone number and told me that my best bet for getting the problem fixed would be to first approach the company, and that if I found the charges to be fraudulent I could document my attempts to get the problem fixed and seek reimbursement from the credit card company for up to 60 days in charges. I then called Shopping Essentials and after hearing a very upbeat call center message, was put through to a person. She entered the call laughing heartily saying that she had just heard a funny joke about the weather, or something to that effect. She then very cordially ask me how the weather was where I was at, which caused me to tell her what part of the country I was located.in retrospect this seems to have been designed to provoke my feelings of cordiality and also allowed her to start the dialogue. She then began asking for my Shopping Essentials account number, and after several failed attempts finally located it. Only then did I have an opportunity to tell her that I believed I had been improperly registered in this program. She acted appalled that such a thing could ever happen and immediately took a more serious tone, letting me know that the company strives for satisfaction, and that if I so desired she could credit me the last months billing. I explained that I could only seek reimbursement from the credit card company for the last 60 days, and that I would like to request reimbursement for the entire 4 months. She said that she was not authorized to reimburse more than 30 days, but that if I insisted on pursuing this she would need to put me through to a supervisor. I restated my request and she put me through to someone else.
After being on hold for about 5 minutes with her checking-in with me now and then, I finally talked to the supervisor. He had a very serious tone and was clearly adept and handling the situation. I elaborated further with him, telling him that consider myself to be a very conscientious online shopper and that I had no recollection of asking to participate in this online program. He said that I most certainly did, and that in fact I had, after purchasing products from evitamins, clicked on a banner which asked if I wanted to receive a $10 credit, that I had confirmed that I did, and that I was then enrolled in a 30 day trial of the Shopping Essentials program. I then vaguely remembered purchasing a sports drink mix from I again reiterated that I had no recollection of acknowledging any such agreement, and that I wanted to be reimbursed for the entire amount. I also told him that when I googled Shopping Essentials I was taken to a Ripoff report website instead of their company, and that I had just read dozens of complaints about their company. He very carefully said that nothing I was currently telling him would result in his ability to reimburse me for more than 30 days, but that he could possibly reimburse me for 60 days if I was satisfied that the matter had been dispensed with. Since I apparently could only hope to receive reimbursement for 2 of the billed amounts from the credit card company, I decided to accept the two reimbursements. He said ok, that I would receive the credit in the next 3 days, that he would withdraw my name from their solicitation list, marketing list, e-mail list, etc., and the call was fairly abruptly over.
Bottom line, I didnt take time to pursue this further and took my $29 reimbursement and consider this a lesson-learned. Im sure Shopping Essentials is very happy, they had my $60 in the bank earning interest, only had to reimburse me half, and went on to the next poor sap who unwittingly agrees to getting a 10 credit. I was not a smart consumer!
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