In October my employer received a mail envelope, allegedly from Harbor Freight, offering him "free customer appreciation gifts" as a reward for his large and frequent orders. He checked off several, including magazine subscriptions, and allowed me a couple. These arrived individually over the following six weeks.
When he received his bank statement for December he discovered that Harbor Freight had given a company listed as TWX his debit card or other account info, without his authorization or consent, and that TWX had charged him for two of those "free" magazine subscriptions. He called TWX and cancelled the subscriptions, then asked me to e-mail Harbor Freight to object to his account information being transferred illegally. I e-mailed Harbor Freight, they rewarded me with an automated do-not-respond e-mail which promised future contact with a customer service rep, and to this day, neither of us has heard from that CSR.
Yesterday, boss man got his January bank statement. They did cancel and refund the two "free customer appreciation gift" subscriptions, but retaliated by debiting him on New Year's Eve for a third subscription, and added insult to injury by withdrawing an additional $139.73 on the day after Christmas.
He called and, after thirty minutes or so of automated pass-the-bucks, got a corporate name of Synapse and a mailing address. We are returning the cheapie Chinese three-dollar tchotchkes and the magazines, total value nowhere near even a quarter of the total charge for "free customer appreciation gifts" we would not have ordered without their mail fraud and deposit account fraud.
We have filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Postal Service, Departments of Consumer Affairs in Utah and California, and Better Business Bureaus in Salt Lake City and Santa Barbara, CA.
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