My fiance ordered a set of videos after seeing a commercial late one night. The vidoes are basically a knockoff of Girls Gone Wild. The price was 8.95 for shipping and the videos were "free"... Right! He was asked if he wanted to continue receiving videos monthly at the regular price... The rep on the phone asked numerous times and each time he was told NO!
He received his shipment of 3 videos and our bank acct was charged $8.95. No problem. He opened one video, wasn't impressed. The other two are still unopened. A few weeks later there was another package in our mailbox. Another video. We didn't pay much attention since it was a duplicate of one of the ones received in the first shipment. I made a mental note to call the company to return it, but got distracted and it slipped my mind. 3 weeks later we got another video but it was not a duplicate. I asked my fiance about it and he stressed that he had told them not to send anymore videos. I believe him because the checking account associated with this card usually only has money from my paychecks so he doesn't use it and wouldn't do so without making sure it's alright to do so.
I happened to be online at my bank and noticed two charges for $28 and change. The description read SRTY SLPOVR which was the titles of the tapes. It may not seem like a lot of money but we did not authorize this company to take it.
I called the customer service number printed on the front of the envelope that the tapes were shipped in. The customer service hours are difficult to reach 10AM to 6PM Monday through Friday Eastern time - ph# 800-439-3620.
If you want to experience HORRIBLE customer service over the phone, this is your place! I work for a retail/catalog call center and just happen to handle the credit/debit card credits and chargeback situations so I KNOW everything they were telling me was a load of crap - from whom I could talk to, to how telephone ordering worked, to how I MUST send the tapes back to receive my money back!
The first woman I spoke with, Tracy, was pleasant enough until she heard my complaint, which was voiced in a calm, ADULT manner. She immediately began interrupting me, raising her voice and you could hear the attitude in her voice and street type slang and inflection replaced professional enunciation. It was like a light switch had been turned on.
I asked for a supervisor she told me she was the floor manager and I could only talk to her. She told me her supervisors didn't take calls. When I explained that I worked in a call center, and dealt with escalated customer issues and supervisor availability I was informed that all call centers are different. Gee, I've always thought that customer service centers were there to ensure customer satisfaction...
When I persisted in asking for some sort of assistance, she hung up on me. BAD move. I called back and spoke with a man and I asked to speak to a supervisor who was not Tracy. He refused and told me I could speak with him. I explained the situation again and told him I had been treated very rudely and unprofessionally by Tracy. I could hear a woman speaking in the background and he informed me that Tracy said I had to return the videos in order to get my money back. I told him that I really didn't want to spend the extra money to ship them back since I didn't order the videos, but I would do it.
I was simply asking for them to reverse the two unauthorized charges before they received the videos back... Again because I had not requested that they be shipped in the first place. I was then told that the "marketing" company that my fiance had contacted to place the order was not associated with the customer "service" center I was now dealing with. What the "marketing" center did had no bearing on what was shipped or not shipped. WHAT?!?!?!?!
At this point I explained that I knew intimately how the credit/debit card charge, credit, fraud and chargeback system works and that I would be contacting my bank to initiate a chargeback, report fraudulent activity and research other possible actions I could take and was again hung up on.
I have cancelled my fiance's debit card so they can't get their sticky fingers into my account again. I have an appointment Monday to meet with the fraud representative from my bank to see if there is anything I can do in that direction.
I am considering contacting the local media, although being in SC I doubt it will make much impact on the company itself other than getting the word out not to do business with this less-than-reputable company.
I'm glad I found consumer complaints! It's just the first stop in many I'm planning to make!
Marjorie
Williston, South Carolina
U.S.A.
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