Avoid Ziinga!

antrobus

Oh, that reminds me. I never did specify the "glaring omission in Ziinga's t&cs" did I?

It's the lack of a jurisdiction clause. Ziinga is a BVI company, operating out of Malta, and selling to consumers in a number of countries, and so you'd expect their T&Cs to specify which country's law applies. Most contracts do, there's usually some standard boilerplate that goes like - this agreement shall be governed by the laws of England and Wales - or similar. The lack of any such governing law or jurisdiction clause rather implies that Ziinga don't actually plan on ever putting their T&Cs in front of a judge at any point in the near future.

viperseven

Im a nervous wreck- i put in my email address, to register for Ziinga, but never bought anything, so i didnt hand over my credit card details. Will i get charged or be required to pay the cancellation fee? Something similar happened to my sister and even though she didnt hand over her card details she still got charged- really hoping the same thing doesnt happen to me!

Louise__3

I have just been sucked into this too.WHAT WAS I THINKING!!..wish I had checked this website first. I bid £2.30 for £100. Put my card details in, and only on the receipt they email through did it state that by entering my card details I had entered into the 3 month platinum contract which is £59.99 a month. I immediately contacted my bank to stop the card, and I also contacted Paypal as my card is attached to that account too. I will speak to CAB later today.

I then called Ziinga to cancel. She sent me an email with cancellation link- which says nothing about cancellation charge. When I asked her about the cancelled fee she said it was £35 which would be applied after the 3 month "membership"!!! So they will charge 59.99 for 3 months then an additional 35 for cancelling after the 3 month period, despite me only "opening" the account this morning and wanting to cancel immediately!!. I havent opened the link yet- will wait to speak to CAB before doing anything else.

I cannot believe how stupid I have been. I always live by the saying "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is"...and then I go and think a website is just giving money away! Lesson learnt, and hopefully they will not be able to take more money out of my account. My bank say they cannot do anything unless they take any more money, but even then they may not be able to get it back because I agreed to the T&Cs, even if it is a dodgy website.

Louise__3

Update- I had several conversations with Ziinga- Customer Services are based in the Phillpinnes and their head office is in Malta, so that should be another warning not to use them. They weren't helpful at all so I went on the 'live chat' on their website and they charged me the £35 cancellation fee to close my account immediately, and said that I would not be charged any further monthly fees. I am just glad to have got them to agree to that. Will be keeping a close eye on my account, and my credit card company called me immediately after I had paid the cancellation fee to check I knew about the activity because the website did not look genuine.

PLEASE DO NOT PUT ANY OF YOUR DETAILS INTO THEIR WEBSITE!

danjourno

Just to keep this thread live and warn others about Ziinga... looks like we aren't alone.

http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/06/ziinga-stinger.html
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?332397-ziinga.com-Help-Needed
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3450073

Bagpuss22

I am having an on-going battle with Ziinga. They claim I bid on something, won it, paid for it and agreed to become a member but I know I never did. I can't even remember visiting their website but I guess I must have done for them to get my email address. They say that I have to pay them £59.99 a month for membership or pay a £35 cancellation fee. I know I have never signed up for anything and have certainly never given them any payment details so I am just ignoring them. They keep threatening to refer me to a debt collector. Are they allowed to threaten random people like this? Any suggestions what I can do to get them off my back?

antrobus

Bagpuss22 wrote: »

I am having an on-going battle with Ziinga. They claim I bid on something, won it, paid for it and agreed to become a member but I know I never did. I can't even remember visiting their website but I guess I must have done for them to get my email address....

Or somebody signed up to Ziinga with an email address that just happened to be yours.

Bagpuss22 wrote: »

They say that I have to pay them £59.99 a month for membership or pay a £35 cancellation fee. I know I have never signed up for anything and have certainly never given them any payment details so I am just ignoring them.

Good plan.

Bagpuss22 wrote: »

They keep threatening to refer me to a debt collector.

Who will send you some more emails.

Bagpuss22 wrote: »

Are they allowed to threaten random people like this?

Don't know. It's not clear which legal jurisdiction Ziinga operate in, but it's not much of a threat.

Bagpuss22 wrote: »

Any suggestions what I can do to get them off my back?

Set a filter to send their emails directly to the trash folder?

As far as I can see you can sign up to Ziinga by just hammering in any old email address that you can conjure up - brad.pitt@hollywood.com would probably work, and no doubt result in the subsequent despatch of communications to that address demanding various sums of money. But as far as I'm aware you can't sue an email address, so a fat lot of good that does them.

vinylmusic

A BIG Thanks to all who brought this to my attention on here
It just proves how useful this forum is helping people to avoid scams
I went onto the ziinga website through an ad which came up on Spotify
(We ought to warn Spotify too)
Almost fell for it but being a bit suspicious checked out this forum first.
I've fallen for scams like this enough times before so now before signing up or buying anything I always check forums and reviews first.
Probably saved myself a packet as well as unnecessary hassle.

Keep it up moneysavers

gtricks

So I have deleted my card I couldn't bare to pay another £35 (the cancellation fee) after giving them about £60 already. But has any of you had a visit from a bailiff? Did they chase it up afterwards or do they give up?:(

Bagpuss22

I have heard nothing more - I assume they have given up.