Free Sample Scam

choille

Sent off for a free sample of face cream and paid for P& P charges about £1.99. Half forgot about this as it was at least two months ago & nothing.

Envelope arrived from Florida with a pot of face cream & a receipt for $89.99 in it. Horrified. Googled & saw an email address for the company named on the receipt, but all emails bounced. There were two phone numbers but did not dial them as was scared these were premium rate.

The people who are plumbed into my bank account are 365Giovannicomplete & what they reckon, according to a quick google, is that I've joined a club & am paying a membership to receive their sister companies products - all news to me. They've actually got the money out of my account even though I phoned my bank when this envelope appeared with this weird receipt in it & the face cream - which I will not use as according to my google Gives you a rash! The Bank say they will refund this amount & will do it each time, but I want it stopped as why should someone plumb into my bank account & take money out?

Now I know there's no fool like an old fool, but I'm shocked that this can happen & the website is still popping up when you look at certain websites & nowt seems to be being done.

McKneff

You siged up to allow them to plumb your bank account. You must have given them your details

Why do you think they wanted yur bank details, youre right, it is a club

They have actually done nothing wrong, they rely on people like you who forget or dont read the terms and conditions.

Ring your bank and see what they can do.

sorry if that;s blunt but............

choille

I paid for the postage with my debit card. As I said I have contacted my bank.
If what you've got as your sig is aimed at me I find that offensive.

I didn't post to be insulted.

marleyboy

As soon as I would have seen a request for my bank details, I would have smelt a scam. Genuine free samples are FREE, the word FREE would have to include cost of postage else nothing short of "Send a S.E.A to....." would suffice, the worst I would expect is spam mail. I would not dream of sending my bank details off to any Joe Bloggs, regardless of their reasons for wanting them.

marleyboy

OP, for the record McKneff sig is not aimed at you, they have had that sig for a while, if I am correct its a famous quote from Judge Judy.

OneYorkshireLass

choille wrote: »

I paid for the postage with my debit card. As I said I have contacted my bank.
If what you've got as your sig is aimed at me I find that offensive.

I didn't post to be insulted.

Hello, sorry to hear you were sucked into a scam. Anything that says 'free' but asks you to send payment generally turns out to be a scam. I hope your bank are true to their word. If it were me I'd be tempted to speak to someone in the local branch just to back up what you've told them.

And yes, it's true, McKneff has had that signature for some time. It's not aimed at you

McKneff

choille wrote: »

I paid for the postage with my debit card. As I said I have contacted my bank.
If what you've got as your sig is aimed at me I find that offensive.

I didn't post to be insulted.

if you do your homework, my signature is on every post I have ever posted. It is not aimed at anyone, it is a fact of life.
Why you would think it is aimed at you is beyond me.

You paid for the postage with your debit card and signed something without reading the terms and conditions.

choille

McKneff wrote: »

You siged up to allow them to plumb your bank account. You must have given them your details

Why do you think they wanted yur bank details, youre right, it is a club

They have actually done nothing wrong, they rely on people like you who forget or dont read the terms and conditions.

Ring your bank and see what they can do.

sorry if that;s blunt but............

I think if you read what I wrote you will see that I have contacted my bank.

I only posted here to warn people.

I've never been scammed before - Believe it or not I'm not some sort of imbecile eejit that you seem to have me down as. I was posting as a warning to others & also as a query into why the banks are not cancelling, but refunding.

choille

Well it must be down to cultural differences coz I'm finding the replies to my original post rude & shirty & smug too.

I did state at the start I'd contacted my bank.

The company is morphing & I had never heard of Giovannicomplete because they change their name. I dealt with a different co. The receipt was in a different co name again & on the actual face cream it's a different company name.

I've asked the bank to cancel but they haven't - They promise to refund but haven't as yet as they reckon they are choked with similar requests as it's blocked up VISA, so I'm not the only eejit out there who has been scammed.

Trading Standards are insisting that the banks should cancel & are in actual breach of Financial Ombudsman Regulations by not doing so.

It just seemed to be a natural thing to post about.

OneYorkshireLass

choille wrote: »

Well it must be down to cultural differences coz I'm finding the replies to my original post rude & shirty & smug too.

Mine was the rudest post I have ever posted, like ever ...



Have you anything in writing from the bank? I'd be worried that they might 'forget' to refund (but yes, they should cancel) so would try and get the agreement in writing.

choille

Sorry, didn't mean you were rude at all, at all.

I don't have a local branch - The co op used to have a branch in Inverness
which is just over 75 miles away, but that shut. I've been on telephone banking.

I have asked them to write to me explaining their stance as well as writing to them today asking that & also formally asking them to cancel what is termed as 'recurring payments'.

On Aug 14th £3.13 went out of my account which I must admit I didn't notice. When the pot of face cream arrived I contacted my bank explaining my concerns & they promised they would 'monitor' my account. I presumed that they would stop money going out, but no, I was wrong. I only found out today when I spoke with them that £64.24 had gone out from my account on the 4th.
Because I've never been scammed before I just assumed that when you contacted the bank it would stop, but no.
I did speak with someone from VISA & they expressed concern as this was a massive problem last year that ate up a huge amount of man hours in their company - it was one of their biggest scams & has started again. There's a similar one with 'health' so- called stuff that is probably related called revit...something or other.