In Feb I ordered business cards from vistaprint for my husband who is self-employed. I used his Alliance-Leicester debit card to pay for them. I have now just been made aware that a recurring debit card payment has been taken from this account, monthly, ever since.
I am devastated to find out that I have paid over £650 from this joint account that my husband uses to keep his business separate from our personal outgoings. I do check this account regularly and thought he knew what this recurring payment was, and vice versa.
This payment has been going to vprewards.com and the first time I ever knew what this company did was when i googled them and the results showed 100s of complaints about a vistapnnt scam.
I contacted vprewards immediately and was told that I had signed up for a reward scheme that offered me discounts off various well known companies such as Crowne Plaza, Homebase and M&S. I told him I had no idea what he was talking about and how had this happened?
He told me I had allegedly clicked a box joining this scheme when I requested a £10 off my next order from Vistaprint. He said I'd clicked a box agreeing to the terms and conditions of the offer giving me 30 days to cancel. I said I had no recollection of this but even if I had why had I never had a confirmation email or at least some information about the scheme. I was very upset and was told it wasn't a problem to cancel this so called membership. When I pointed out that they had taken nearly £600 for absolutely nothing, he offered me £122.20 as a gesture of goodwill. I refused and demanded a full refund. They have now offered £234 and again I have refused this offer.
This is the most underhand, deceiptful way of taking money that I have ever heard of. The subscription went up 4 times during the time I was paying it, and at the very least I should have been made aware of that fact. It started out at £9.95, then 11.95,15.95,18.95 nd finally 21.95. The first email I received from vprewards. Comwas 17th Oct and this is one that they allege was sent 17th July. I have all my emails (over 7000) saved on webmail and so know they have never contacted me before. Surely a legitimate company would send you details of offers, discounts etc especially when if I type Vistaprint into my email I get 100s, but if I type in vprewards, nothing until I emailed them 16th Oct.
They must also know that I have never visited their website, because I never had a membership number until after they cancelled the 'membership'. It would be interesting to know if the well known companies they advertise are part of the scheme, but without a membership number I can't find out.
I have written to vprewards twice, demanding my money back. I have also contacted vistaprint who at first denied having anything to do with vprewards, but now acknowledge my complant.
Vistaprint is now a company that is advertising nationally on TV, and I hope that they will reailise that they have a reputation to protect and at the very least I hope I can prevent this sort of scam ever happening again.
I realise that most other people found out that the'd been scammed after a few payments, but there could still be innocent people, paying a subscription that they know nothing about.
Please can you help me make this company realise that cheating people into join a scheme and then making them feel absolutely stupid is not the way to build a good business, or a reputation to be proud of.
Thankyou
Yours sincerely
(Personal Information Removed)
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