URGENT ADVICE PLEASE..is this illegal....

chrisb374

Cancelled my account yesterday on the phone and was told my money would be refunded, checked my account online today and, yep you guessed it, another £9.95 gone from my account.

I'm am now going to my bank to see what they can do about this.

eliza2355

I have just checked my bank account and found that I have had 2 lots of £9.95 taken . I am utterly amazed and thanks to this site I can hopefully get a refund . Cant ring until 12pm as its in USA. will this cost to ring this number? what a con . its a shame as I was really pleased with my buisiness cards but wont be using them in future

eliza2355

i phoned 08000288251 but cant get through so phoned the number helendave gave and my account has been cancelled and I was given a cancellation number!!!! but I was told I had no chance of getting the 2 payments of £9.95 because I didnt respond to an email they sent where I could opt out. I told her I got E mails every day from vistaprimt and just deleted them so was told it was MY fault for not reading them
I told her in was a scam but she said it wasnt and was legal . Where do I go from here?

codger

Why on earth does an outfit like Amazon UK risk its good name by associating with Vistaprint???

Every box we've had from Amazon in recent months (we've been on a bit of a buying spree) has had a 'free business card' flyer stuffed into it.

Consumers don't band together to construct fraudulent conspiracies, so either Amazon UK has not been told of what's gone on (for so long, too) or it's locked itself into a contract it may privately regret but is publicly having to stick with. Hopefully it will disassociate itself pretty soon.

chippers

Having purchased 'free' business cards and paid for delivery,I assumed that the order had been completed. ( The cards were of Good Quality).
I then like a lot of other people discovered a regular payment of £9.95 being taken out of my account on a monthly basis.
I have just rung the number given 0800 028 8251, whereby the person answering gave me a member ID number and another tel number to ring 0845 672 2002 which is apparently their head office.
Both people I spoke to were very matter of fact and I have been promised a full refund of 4 months payments and immediate closure of my account.
Hope this is of some use to you all.

eliza2355

I have had the same reply, they promise to refund my money and cancel my membership but this is a copy of an e mail that I got from a customer who had the same problems...>>>>>


Hi Liz , this is a tough one! They tried to close us down because we exposed the scam!

Be careful, even though they say they will stop taking money they continue on, some people have lost over 200 pounds or more

It may be worth canceling the credit card and getting a new one issued to stop this

Threaten to take them to small claims court by letter if they continue!

let me know how things work out>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

........I am thinking of doing the same with my credit card as it looks like they dont always keep their promise to cancel subscriptions

mrsiwannabefree

I have been "done" to the tune of £28.95 - I never saw any email giving me a membership number etc.
I have telephoned, emailed and written to VPRewards UK, VPRewards USA and Adaptive Affinity asking how they obtained my personal information under the Data Protection Act 1984 & 1988 and demanding a refund.
I received a letter from VPR UK saying they had cancelled my membership and waffling on about rubbish but no mention of a refund.
When I tried to 'phone them the automated system told me I was no longer a member and cut me off!
I have just rung Hilary and asked her again about a refund. She said she will refund 2 months but not all of it, so I suggested she did a search on the net cos she's now famous because of working for a company that is scamming hundreds of people - by the sound of it she was very surprised! I told her to contact her head office and tell them that I want all my money back and I would keep ringing her until I got it! :mad:

Michkoff

Codiac wrote: »

My Cure for this problem is drastic but simple. Phone your Bank / Credit Card company cancel your card and get a replacement sent out, new issue no etc, no more unwanted debits from VPREWARDS

I came on to read as I had had 4 x £9.95 taken out. was real shocked! but wanted to say about changing your card. that wont work. I actually have changed banks, new account & cards, the lot. gave me internet banking, thats how I found out about the payments. so when it changed over, VPrewards transferred too. now I will be getting in touch with Vistaprint. Thanks for all your help everybody!

mrsiwannabefree

Hi
I posted yesterday re my dealings with VPRewards. I telephoned Hilary again yesterday and she offered a partial refund which I refused and then suggested she got in touch with her head office.
Last night I got a telephone call from Andrew Millet at Adaptive Affinity to say that he had been instructed to apologise to me personally by their company in the USA! He said there had obviously been some sort of mix up, needless to say I explained there was no mix up, and as he well knew it was his company scamming money out of hundreds of peoples bank accounts!
He informed me that they had 18,000,000 members so I said 18,000,000 members that wanted to be members or 18,000,000 people that were duped into filling in a survey not knowing that they would become members and then have money taken out of their account!
He said that all companies get bad publicity even M&S and suggested I googled to have a look, told him that he was probably quite right but that I was certain that his company had an awful lot more complaints than any other company!
I informed him that I had contacted My Shopping Rewards (the website through which I ordered my business cards) and had advised them of the scam they were running, and that they had now removed Vista Print from their website stating that they did not wish to be associated with companies like that! Told him I would be contacting Amazon too to get them to remove any adverts from their emails etc.
He apologised again and offered a full refund - I asked for the postage of £10 to be refunded also and he agreed to that too.
I have had 2 further calls this morning - one from Hilary saying she had heard from head office and was organising a refund and then another from the Manager of the customer services - Rachel Mannon(?) - to say that she would personally be organising my refund for me today!!
Woohoo looks like my letters quoting parts of the fraud act, the data protection act and threatening them with BBCs Watchdog worked!
Keep onto them they'll cave in eventually!! :j

wlcnetwork

I've fallen, unwittingly, into the same trap! I certainly DID NOT receive an e-mail with a membership number and, therefore, couldn't login to cancel. I Received an e-mail warning me they would be taking £9.95 from my account and so, using the 0845 number offered, I rang and cancelled and received a cancellation reference number. I also e-mailed to confirm and, you guessed it, the e-mail bounced.

To compound the felony, they helped themselves to £9.95 from my card account last week. I've since phoned again and got the automated system to cancel [again] and got yet another cancellation reference number.

Having picked up a new phone number in this thread I called again today and discovered to my horror that I was subscribed to TWO rewards programmes. I have to say the girl [Rachel Manners] was courteous and helpful and has confirmed that both memberships have now been cancelled and that the payment already taken will be refunded. I quizzed her as to how I could possibly have unknowingly elected to join two such programmes. She said, simply, that I had ticked an appropriate box - twice.

I'm reasonably IT literate and have been using the Internet for several years without a problem. I would not subscribe to such a programme and I do not believe that I ticked a box in which, apparently, it clearly states my account would be debited by £9.95 a month.

The other programme to which I had unwittingly subscribed was...
Premier Club
AKA clubprem.com

A salutary lesson learned!

Regards
Bill

vicstar wrote: »

I have fallen into this trap too - just got my visa bill and sure enough there was £9.95 payment to VPRewards on it. I bought some postcards from VistaPrint last month and obviously clicked on a link somewhere to sign up for this in the process. I have phoned and complained and finally persuaded them to refund the money although I have to say they were very reluctant to do this until I made a fuss. Will be keeping a close eye to make sure I actually get the money back. Certainly wouldn't use vistaprint again now because I think this is very underhand - shame because I was happy with the quality of the postcards and we were going to order wedding invites through them.