On June 13th I was surfing the web when I came across an advertisement for Internet Profit Gene. The advertisement claimed that the company was feature on such reputable media as Good Morning America, Oprah, and The New York Times. Having been unemployed since August, I took the opportunity to check them out, I mean, if Oprah says it's good, then it must be.
I signed up for the 7 day trial period and paid my $1.95. I knew when I paid this money that I had 7 days to decide if I was willing to pay an additional $81.32 for the service. As soon as I paid the money and accessed the website, I knew I didn't want to keep it. The whole premise was teaching people how to sell items on e-bay, and I do not own anything worth auctioning off, besides, I know very well how to use e-bay.
I immediately called the customer service line to cancel. I was automatically put through to a message machine, where I left my name, contact information for questions, and the fact that I was canceling. Unfortunately, they did not cancel my membership and chose to charge my account $81.32 this morning.
What they were not expecting when they decided to steal from me is that I check my back account daily, just for instances such as this. The first thing I did was contact my very helpful bank and file a dispute against the charge. They have canceled my card, frozen the charge, and are working to reverse it. The second thing I did was call the company itself, where I was once again directed to a message machine.
I left a very nice message about how I had canceled the account immediately after opening it and had filed a dispute with my bank over their attempt to fraudulently withdraw additional funds from my account. Then I alerted them of the fact that I do have an attorney I will be contacting on Monday morning to discuss the matter further and will also be contacting the BBB and FBI fraud unit.
I have no way of knowing as of yet how this is going to turn out. I suppose that the best thing that I can learn from this is that I should just continue to press on in getting a job the old fashioned way and not give my bank information to a company just because They claim to be recognized by Oprah. I will update this posting as soon as I know how this is going to turn out.
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