Help please - Madbid have taken my money

littlem83 · 19 April 2012 at 9:38PM

I'm having a massive panic as Madbid (penny auction site - I know, I'm a fool to even have an account!) have charged me for 7 x £12.99 bid packages that I DID NOT purchase. The charges are logged in my 'purchase history' on the site and have come out of my bank account today. I received an e-mail from the site on Tues saying I had received a deposit in my account. I logged in later that dy to enjoy this freebie and then left it bidding automatically (a feature of the site). I came back later to see that it was still going when I should have run out of bids long before. When I looked in the 'purchase history' it showed 7 transactions for £12.99 bid packages and one package that was listed as costing £0. All of these transactions were about 2 mins apart and I hadn't even been in the room! I immediately checked my bank account to see if I'd been charged and nothing showed so I assumed these additional packages must also have been freebies. Today the charges have appeared on my bank statement and I'm furious. I'm basically worried that I have no way of proving I didn't make those transactions. I can't afford to be £90 down right now!! Advice would be greatly appreciated. (I've e-mailed them already stating all this and asking for a refund but haven't heard back yet and can't call customer service until tomorrow).

soolin · 19 April 2012 at 11:17PM

You probably signed up for automatic purchases

http://uk.madbid.com/terms#section06_01

6.9 Rapid Recharge Feature

The 'Rapid Recharge Feature' immediately buys a Credit Package for any Registered User if:

his Credit balance falls below the level stated at the time he requests the Rapid Recharge Feature, or
as otherwise notified to the Registered User by the Company from time to time.
Any Registered Users who do not want to request the Rapid Recharge Feature should untick the relevant box. When a Registered User requests the Rapid Recharge Feature, he grants the Company the right to use his saved Credit Card details to purchase Credit Packages stated at the time he requests the Rapid Recharge Feature when his Credit level falls below the stated level.

A Registered User may disable the Rapid Recharge Feature at any time by going to My MadBid and unselecting the Rapid Recharge tickbox, and then submitting the form changes.

Immediately after the Rapid Recharge Feature is disabled by the User, the authority granted to the Company to use his saved Credit Card details for the Rapid Recharge Feature is withdrawn.

All purchases made through the Rapid Recharge Feature are purchases of Credit Packages for the purposes of these Terms and Conditions.

The Company disclaims any and all potential losses (i.e. lost auctions) which a Registered User may ascribe to as a result of Rapid Recharge failure.

littlem83 · 20 April 2012 at 2:55PM

The 'Rapid Recharge Feature' immediately buys a Credit Package for any Registered User if:

his Credit balance falls below the level stated at the time he requests the Rapid Recharge Feature, or
as otherwise notified to the Registered User by the Company from time to time.
Any Registered Users who do not want to request the Rapid Recharge Feature should untick the relevant box. When a Registered User requests the Rapid Recharge Feature, he grants the Company the right to use his saved Credit Card details to purchase Credit Packages stated at the time he requests the Rapid Recharge Feature when his Credit level falls below the stated level.

But I’ve never requested this service nor received communication from the company stating I was getting it?? And how would that account for the fact they have charged me £12.99 for a transaction that occurred at 11am that day – when I was at work – nowhere near the madbid site?! (The package I thought was a ‘freebie’ and the reason I went on the blasted site at all that day!).
I’ve not had any response to my e-mail yet L

wealdroam · 20 April 2012 at 3:20PM

OP, have you checked to see if the Rapid Recharge Feature is enabled as described above?

Have you now disabled the Rapid Recharge Feature?

littlem83 · 20 April 2012 at 3:56PM

I just had a look and it took me a while to find but at the bottom of the ‘edit settings’ section I found this:
Save time and ensure a smooth bidding experience by enabling the Rapid Recharge functionality (what is this)

View full Terms and Conditions here
Click here to disable your 'Rapid Recharge'

The thing is I’ve never seen this and didn’t know anything about it. When this happened I did notice that I seemed to suddenly have more credits than I expected and I had a bit of a worry that I’d ‘accidentally’ bought more credits without realising. I had a look at the section called ‘how to buy credits’ in case anything had changed since I last used the site and it just had the same instructions about clicking on the ‘buy credits’ tab and choosing which package you want etc. so I was completely reassured as I knew I’d definitely not done anything like that. Have they just enabled this function without telling me? Are they allowed to do that? And what of the ‘purchase’ at 11am when I wasn’t even near the computer? That can’t be ‘rapid recharge’ as there was nothing to recharge – I hadn’t been on the site for weeks!!! And STILL no response from them. L L

littlem83 · 20 April 2012 at 3:57PM

p.s. I haven't clicked on the 'disable' button as I don't want them to think I'm trying to change my settings to cover up the fact that I knew about it at the time as I didn't. It's not mentioned anywhere on the site - even in the info about buying credits. Only in the terms and conditions - buried away in tiny writing, and in the section I've copied above.

Fosterdog · 1 July 2012 at 6:30PM

Madbid is not a scam site, I've never used it myself but a few people at work use it regularly and have had some bargains on there.

molerat · 1 July 2012 at 6:58PM

claimjustice wrote: »

madbid is scam site that should be reported to trading standards!!! I mean it's not even a real auction! When the bidding time ends, they add another 20 seconds to it, that's weird! I think they have all these products themselves and sell it to the highest bidder. The proberly have all the products in a garage or something!

visit xxxxxxxx.co.uk instead and see the items before you buy!

Take the advice of a spammer ?, check their other posts spamming their own site.

Money_maker · 1 July 2012 at 7:12PM

Well done molerat for correctly quoting. Shame on you transient for spreading the spam by quoting without checking.

transient · 5 July 2012 at 10:27PM

Money_maker wrote: »

Well done molerat for correctly quoting. Shame on you transient for spreading the spam by quoting without checking.

Terrible assumption to make. I reported the spam post and asked the team to amend my post if they believed it to be spam (although I know it was it is down to them to ascertain if it is a spamming post for them to remove)

policychecker · 3 December 2013 at 2:40PM

I tried the site to see what it was all about and low and behold they took multiple amounts of the same credit card details from my credit card, which i just got re-credited to the tune of £100 you have to watch these fly by night operations this was not a auto thing but a n error on their part (alledgedly) lol. I wouldn't recommend the site for any normal person. you will spend about double what you could by the thing for on ebay. you might get lucky the odd time but it is like roulette, if you play for long enough you will lose and then you will lose bigger. keep away but if you join check every payment. and don't ever use the auto credit EVER! basically a pyramid schemme that will eventually run out of mugs to play - peace and love

Help please - Madbid have taken my money

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