I admit I wasn't paying as close attention to my husband's credit card as I should have and saw recurring charges regarding grant searches (BSM Grant Search Asst, SBA Express, Easy Grant that seemed somewhat excessive, but I knew he was looking for grants, so I let it go and paid the bills.
When I finally asked if he still used these services, he told me he was never able to log on to the ONE grant search engine he had signed up with and had no idea what Network Agenda was. We had been charged for six months for these services.
I called BSM Grant Search and asked to cancel service and to get the charges refunded as we were never able to log on to use their service. The first person who answered said he would gladly cancel and refund $39.95. I told him I wanted ALL of it refunded. He put me through to a supervisor who was obviously reading from a script. She said she was not obligated to refund anything at all because it was my husband's fault for not canceling during the trial period, but as a courtesy she would refund 4 of the 6 months we'd paid. I told her that was not acceptable, I wanted it all back, my husband is an attorney and we felt this was fraud and would do whatever we had to do to get our money back. She relented and credited back 6 months at $39.95.
The next day I called Network Agenda to do the same thing and found out it was the same company, Raven Media. This $9.95/month charge was nothing my husband ever signed up for; it was merely tacked on by unscrupulous thieves at Raven Media. Another name to watch for: BSM/SBA Express, $7.95/mo, Raven again.
I must say I had no problem getting through to the Grant Search number (866/370-7270), and they ultimately credited back everything they charged me, including $1.97 shipping for the CD we never received, but I had to be extremely persistent. The employees were not rude. They did not openly disclose the information that the companies were linked, but when I asked them directly about it, they admitted that they could bring up all of our charges from all five companies on their screen and verified all the refund information for me, along with confirmation numbers.
As a precaution I canceled the credit card they had and reopened it with another number with the same credit card company. The refunds will go through to the card, but new charges will not. I just had to notify other LEGITIMATE vendors I had linked to that credit card that the number had changed.
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