On October 10th I clicked on an advertiement on Facebook for a novelty Lego brick memory stick. This link took me to ziinga.com. To get the free memory stick I was told to bid for one of the products on their page. I chose the item of least value which was a Gift card for a store. I won this item with the one bid for £3.43 (surprise). I paid for the item with my credit card. The confirmation email arrived, the £3.43 had gone up to £5.43 but I thought OK probably postage. I now noticed some conditons had been added to the receipt, which had not been mentioned on their site. These were a compulsory membership fee of £59.99 per month for 3 months, plus they wanted scanned copies of my passport/driving licence and both sides of my credit card. No way would I have agreed to any of these conditions, I only ever wanted the memory stick which was probably worth less than £1. I certainly would not agree to send copies of my passport, credit card, etc. Who in their right mind would send all the details needed for identity theft to an unknown company that doesn't even have a UK address? I immediately emailed ziinga to cancel my membership (within 5 or 10 mins). Their response was that they would cancel but I would have to pay the 3 months fees. I cancelled my credit card at this point to prevent any charges other than the £5.43 being taken. I heard no more for 3 months when I received an email demanding payment of £179.97 (3 months of £59.99). I have not replied to this email. I have informed Consumer Advice of this and am waiting any suggestions they mat have of what to do next, if anything.
The reason ziinga gave for needing copies of my passport and driving licence was to ensure only one free gift per household was issued, this is rubbish as they only need to keep a record of the dispatch address. This does not explain why they have not sent the gift card that I purchased as this was not a free item.
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