This internet ad popped up on my Yahoo home page and cited a person had appeared on several major news shows and displayed their logos (MSNBC, CNN, ABC, and USA Today). The price for SHIPPING was listed as a a 99 cent special using a code of SAVE1 with no other costs listed. It indicated you would be SENT not given a link for the tutorial for making several hundred dollars a day - $25 per Google link entered. Lo and behold, when I started entering my credit card info it popped up as $1.95 charge for my TRIAL offer. No mention of that previously! I printed out the confirmation of membership with Username/Password etc. Okay, I should have stopped at that point, but my curiosity got the better of me. As I started reading the ridiculously complicated and overwhelming information to start the tutorial, which is written in first person (How personal!), the author said "he" would strongly suggest that you first go to ClickBank's website to set up a way for you to get paid for all your hard work. Since they said it was a free service (come on, nothing in life is free!) I went into the site to see what personal information I would NOT be willing to share! Signed up (giving no usable info) and again, lo and behold, this did not send me my confirmation code so I could get paid for all my hard work. Now I was getting irritated, so I Googled (ironic that they were using Google to draw me in, and I used Google to find them out) the company and found people stating they were charged $129 after 3 days and then an additional $39.98/month for the "service" and an additional $29 something for an unrelated website. Now I was getting steamed. I had now wasted more time than I should have. I called 1-888-753-4203 for the Customer Service for Creative Search Training Learning Center listed on the page I printed immediately after signing up. The bubbly little girl on the other end said they had nothing to do with ClickBank (even though their training manual strongly suggested signing up with them FIRST) but I could contact them at the number listed on their website. I told her no such number existed because I already had checked all over their website. She put me on hold and came back with the wonderful information that I could e-mail them from their website. Been there, done that! No response. I suggested to her that they should take some responsibility for it, since their training site had suggested STRONGLY to sign up with them. Since I was getting nowhere with the confirmation code so I could get paid for all my hard work I was going to be doing (FAT CHANCE), I asked her if there were any additional charges that would be forthcoming after my free 30 day trial was over. She oh so kindly corrected me that it was a THREE day trial (NEVER SAW THAT!) not a 30 day. I told her that sucked. I asked her what I would be charged after 3 days, and she said it would only be a one time charge of $129. She said since I seemed interested in the program, she would waive the $129 charge and I would only be charged the $39.98 monthly. I was telling her I never saw anything about $129 or any amount anywhere and I asked her why she just told me it would ONLY be $129 and now she was mentioning another charge! I immediately asked her why I wasn't given that information anywhere. She swears it was in the Terms & Conditions. I told her I scanned it and never saw any mention of charges! I immediately told her I wanted my membership cancelled! I then called my credit card company to make sure the charges did not go through. They gave me the toll free # to call the merchant to get a cancellation #. If they did not give me a cancellation #, I needed to call the credit card company dispute department so they could dispute the charges for me. When I called the merchant, lo and behold! They were closed for the day! When I went back to recheck the printed confirmation page of membership, I noticed a disclaimer that the service is not endorsed or affiliated with MSNBC, CNN, ABC or USA Today and Google does not sponsor, endorse or is not affiliated in any way with Creative Search Training. HUH? How do they get away with using their logos in their ad if there is no relationship? The saga continues tomorrow.
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