Dzinerstudio.com
Re-billing Scam

Several months ago I purchased a "one-time", three-month subscription from DzinerStudio via PayPal to access their Premium forum templates. Nowhere on their website does it say that there is any type of automatic renewal, or re-billing of your credit card after your fist purchase. As a matter of fact, it reiterates that once your subscription runs out, you will no longer have access to the templates.

Right before my subscription expired, I received an email alerting me that my account was expiring at DS. Of course, that is exactly what I paid for, and expected.

To my surprise, a few days later, I noticed a charge come through my PayPal account for another three-month subscription! I immediately alerted the admin at DS and complained. An admin called "Bikken" emailed me back, and told me that he guessed I didn't know about the "automatically checked" renewal box through PayPal at time of purchase. Of course I didn't see any such thing at time of purchase, or I would've "unchecked" it.

Bikken, however, understood that I did not want my account renewed, and put in for a refund via PayPal. Doing so, however, takes between 10-15 business days to credit the customer's bank account. (this accounts for a 5 day waiting period for the refund to clear the merchant's bank, another 2-3 business days to get back into the customer's PayPal account, and another 3-5 business days to transfer the funds back into the customer's bank account).

It would have been faster to just credit the PayPal account with the amount charged, instead of trying to reverse the original debit.

A PayPal refund does not stop payment... So the transaction still hit my bank account. Not expecting that transaction, I did not have the funds to cover the debit. So my bank charged an additional $30 NSF fee.

I called my bank and explained the unauthorized charge that caused the NSF fee, but they said that if it's not a bank error, NSF fees cannot be reversed. So I asked DzinerStudio to refund that fee.

Here is their response:

"My intervention was too late? As soon as i noticed your post/pm/email and the one from PayPal i responded and refunded you your latest payment. How faster can i be? Don't forget we are living in different time zones and we have other jobs to take care of as well.

With all due respect but YOU (not us) signed up for a 3 month subscription. YOU (not us) choose it to be a recurring payment. Whether you missed the option or not, that is not something WE control. When signing up for a subscription (or anything else), it's YOUR responsibility to make sure
you've read and double checked everything carefully. This is the same with every other payment you make to anyone esle.

We were already kind enough to refund you your latest payment (44$) and to cancel the subscription for you. We didn't have to do that but we did. Now, you want us to pay another 30$ on top of that because of something YOU missed/forgot to check? In other words, we have to pay for a
crime we didn't commit? You can't be serious.

Bikken"

When I discussed the issue with another member of their staff, this is what they said about their payment policies:

"It has been discussed before about posting that a customer's subscription will be put on an automatic renewal on the order form. It has also been discussed that members should be given at least a five day notice when a subscription is about to expire or be automatically renewed.
Nothing ever came of it and I am not sure why because any customer should be notified of any account changes or renewals and should be told that they themselves need to stop the renewal through their Paypal account before it takes place. It's just good business.

As far as the refund there is nothing that I can do as I do not control membership accounts. All I can say is that I am sorry that you had to deal with it in the first place, especially with no satisfied
resolution."

It's very sad that an online company does not state their payment policies anywhere on their website, and assumes the customer can just read their minds. It goes without saying that I'll never do business with this company again!

Company: Dzinerstudio.com
Country: USA
State: Florida
City: Jupiter
Site: dzinerstudio.com

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