I was on my way to the store to buy a pack of cigarettes when I heard the commercial for "smoke assist." They claimed it was a free trial, and I was curious. I figured I'd probably have to pay shipping and handling, but I've been wanting to quit, so I figured I'd try it. The agent on the phone, whose name was "Edward, " was at first very nice and asked me a few questions about how long I've been smoking for and how much, the cost of cigs in my area, etc. He then told me about their product and said I could have the unit for free and pay 10.00 shipping & handling. I agreed and gave him my address and credit card info (which happens to be linked to my student financial aid money for college classes I'm currently attending.) Immediately after getting my payment info, "Edward" started rapidly speaking, telling me that my unit would need replacement filters each month, and that these would be automatically billed to my card. I'm not sure how many filters he was even saying he was talking so fast. I think he said it'd be something like 119.95 a month! I told him that I hadn't agreed to that, and all I was interested in was the unit, which I had agreed to pay shipping and handling on. When I asked him if I could try the unit until I needed a new filter and then pay for one at that time, he became very condescending and told me that I would just start smoking regular cigarettes again. At that point I started getting agitated and I told him that I used to work in a call center, (I have before), and that I knew that if I requested to speak to his supervisor he would HAVE to let me speak to her. At first Edward kept trying to sell me their product, and explaining how much money I'm already spending on cigarettes, etc, and then when I kept insisting on speaking to his supervisor he finally said to me, "That's it? You're a quitter? You're quitting on me? Ok." and put me on a silent hold for at least 10 minutes! I waited and waited and finally a supervisor came on the line. When I told her i wanted to cancel my order and told her that her employee had spoken to me so rudely, she just launched into another sales pitch about how I could always "customize my order" so that I would only be billed for filters I used and how great their product was. I then insisted that she cancel my order completely. She then claimed it had been canceled, but in the future if I "became strong enough to attempt to quit smoking" to give them a call! So far my online statement of my account doesn't show a charge for Smoke Assist, but I'm keeping an eye out. If I see anything like that, I'm going to call my card company and explain this to them! So think twice before you call this company and give the ANY info! I havent tried their product, so I don't know if it works. But I just think it's really sad that a company is preying on people that really do want to quit smoking. They make you feel like a wimpy piece of crap b/c you smoke and if you don't order their product then you're selfish and not interested in quitting!
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