Hello fellow Rip-Offees:
I too was automatically enrolled in their membership even though I declined membership when I ordered 3 books from discountbooksale.com. I discovered this situation because I read the enrollment notification emails that were sent by discountbooksale.com and smartsavingscenter.com.
Hopefully, however, I do have a success story to recount.
The fee for the books was immediately charged to my account (posted as pending), even though the books are yet to be shipped. Unusual, but not unethical.
What is unethical is the automatic enrollment into a re-occurring $30 monthly charge for a membership! I spotted this membership charge by noticing an unauthorized $1 fee that was immediately charged to my debit card (posted as pending), which I now understand is for the first month's membership fee for the 'free' 7-day membership trial to smartsavingscenter.com.
After significant Internet research, I learned how to cancel the membership at discountbooksale.com. A discountbooksale.com there is NO information on how to cancel the account (the email notification says to call 866-707-5858) nor is there any submit-to-cancel button or form. However, I read in another complaint to submit a complaint at smartsavingscenter.com. Once the trouble ticket was submitted, web form buttons to cancel the membership appear. I use the cancellation button at smartsavingscenter.com to submit an online cancellation of the 'free' 7 day membership. I received confirmation emails for both the trouble ticket and the cancellation submission.
I then called the customer service number (866-707-5858 / 866-566-8437 / 800-511-3538) for discountbooksale.com, and after calling 3 different times waiting on hold for an average of 15 minutes each call I was also able to finally reach a live customer support person! The customer support person was friendly and clear-spoken, and verified my account particulars. She then confirmed that I had already canceled the membership, indicating to me that the smartsavingscenter.com and the discountbooksale.com memberships are linked.
If the $1 charge is not removed, or any additional membership charges are posted, I will work with my bank to dispute the unauthorized charges.
This has been a really pain and a waste of a good morning. I rarely complain, and I almost never submit online rip-off / scam reports, but I did this time! I submitted reports to bbb.org, fraud.org, and usacomplaints.com, for I consider this to be a nasty case of fraud: I had specifically declined enrollment and was automatically enrolled anyway, although — admittedly — the email notifications after the sale did state how to opt-out of this membership.
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