Gourmet Society - Scam - Anyone successfully got their money back

Nirvana9

So a year after buying a 12 month Gourmet Society membership I have been had by their auto renewal scam.

I was aware they charged automatically for free trials, but I did not know this happened when you had actually purchased a membership.

I did get an email notification a couple of weeks before auto renewal, but as it seems happens to most people, it went in my spam (all their other emails seem to make it successfully into my inbox) and I didn't find out about it until I got my new card and a 'thanks for renewing' :mad: letter today.

I've already spoken to my credit card company and should now have the form to raise a dispute on its way.

However I'm aware that the dispute team (or whoever they are) will speak to the Gourmet Society. I'm concerned that if the GS say they sent me an email and were within their rights to charge me, that I will lose the dispute.

So, has anyone successfully got their money back in this situation?

visidigi

Nirvana9 wrote: »

So a year after buying a 12 month Gourmet Society membership I have been had by their auto renewal scam.

I was aware they charged automatically for free trials, but I did not know this happened when you had actually purchased a membership.

I did get an email notification a couple of weeks before auto renewal, but as it seems happens to most people, it went in my spam (all their other emails seem to make it successfully into my inbox) and I didn't find out about it until I got my new card and a 'thanks for renewing' :mad: letter today.

I've already spoken to my credit card company and should now have the form to raise a dispute on its way.

However I'm aware that the dispute team (or whoever they are) will speak to the Gourmet Society. I'm concerned that if the GS say they sent me an email and were within their rights to charge me, that I will lose the dispute.

So, has anyone successfully got their money back in this situation?

Did you actually contact the gourmet society to ask them what the options are here?

I can't see a chargeback being successful - you gave them the option to renew in the original T&C's I'm sure.

You would be much better off avoiding the chargeback and working on the issue with the society first.

Also, the use of the word scam is a pretty strong one - you signed up to the T&C's and had a years membership, its no different to car insurance etc etc.

It's not a scam imo.

wealdroam

Nirvana9 wrote: »

So a year after buying a 12 month Gourmet Society membership I have been had by their auto renewal scam.

I was aware they charged automatically for free trials, but I did not know this happened when you had actually purchased a membership.

I did get an email notification a couple of weeks before auto renewal, but as it seems happens to most people, it went in my spam (all their other emails seem to make it successfully into my inbox) and I didn't find out about it until I got my new card and a 'thanks for renewing' :mad: letter today.

I've already spoken to my credit card company and should now have the form to raise a dispute on its way.

However I'm aware that the dispute team (or whoever they are) will speak to the Gourmet Society. I'm concerned that if the GS say they sent me an email and were within their rights to charge me, that I will lose the dispute.

So, has anyone successfully got their money back in this situation?

Just read this thread from earlier this year and you will see you are not alone:

The Gourmet society rip off.........

Search the forums to find more threads.

Nirvana9

wealdroam wrote: »

Just read this thread from earlier this year and you will see you are not alone:

The Gourmet society rip off.........

Search the forums to find more threads.

Thanks wealdroam. Yep I'm aware I'm far from alone, which to answer the question above, is why I haven't spoken to the Gourmet Society before raising the dispute. It says in the email which went in my spam that unless I requested a cancellation code before the 24th of November that's it and I will not be refunded.

From reading other people's experiences that's what they will say if I try to talk to them. Didn't seem worth the bother.

Nirvana9

Okay, so I just checked the join page and they do make it quite clear now that it's auto renewal. However I've checked the same page in Web Archive (to see how it looked 12 months ago) and it isn't quite so clear.

In addition I joined via an offer code, so I can't check the exact page I joined through.

Regardless though of however plain and clear they could make the renewal info, it seems that a good chunk of these renewal emails end up in people's spam folders.

This cannot be seen as a reasonable attempt to contact people about renewal, surely?

wealdroam

Here's another old Gourmet Society thread dating from March 2010:

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=2327315

In there people are saying that four years ago GS were asking for the card to be returned if you wanted to cancel your membership.
Apparently that requirement was in the welcome booklet.

In June last year, I guess that's before you joined, their T&Cs started with:



Looks like they are always making this stuff clearer, doesn't it?
And you had to tick a box saying you agreed to the T&Cs.

annetheman

I feel for the original poster.

Gourmet Society tried to take £39.99 out of my account via my debit card - luckily, I had lost and already cancelled the card a few days before they tried.

The debit request bounced and their email said: "Rest assured, we will continue to try to debit your account until we get the money so I can continue to enjoy Gourmet Society benefits" - I'm incredulous. Given that the only time/place I can use this pointless waste of plastic is if I book in advance to a dodgy Indian restaurant on a Tuesday afternoon at 4:30.

No weekend, no December, 1 menu item choice, no Valentine's day, no walk-ins, etc etc etc.

Sooooo pointless!

When I called today to cancel the membership, the lady on customer service duty scolded me (scolding a grown adult, can you be any more ridiculous or patronising) for not cancelling 15 days before the trial end date. Bearing in mind my trial ends on the 20th of Jan - it is now the 13th of Jan and they tried to take the money out on the 10th.

I didn't argue with her though - just told her they wouldn't be able to take the money from my account using that debit card, ever, so they may as well cancel it, or feel free to waste their time chasing me. She promptly cancelled my membership.

The membership number still works though, so I entirely plan on sharing it with all my Facebook friends so that they can use it whenever and wherever they can -- hopefully restaurants will get annoyed by the scheme and pull out like Pizza Express did, and this whole shoddy business will come crashing down.

As far as I understand it, they make the majority of their income as a company by taking advantage of the fact that people will rarely make a note of the cancellation deadline, nor will they read the T&Cs very closely, where it states you must cancel 15 DAYS prior to the end of the trial. Even if you have to wait for 45 minutes on the phone to do so, like I had to.

They had an 0845 number in the past, I think the number of complaints meant trading standards forced them to change it to an 0800 number.




And as for this warning email about the end of my membership, which they cleverly disguised as another of their boring bulletin e-mails that I ignore, and also sent a mere 36 hours before they tried to charge my debit card......

In the email, they say that you can cancel online by going to "Account Information" -- THAT DOESN'T EVEN EXIST ON THEIR WEBSITE! There is not a single place on their website where you can change any of your personal details, not even your address.

Now THAT surely cannot be legal?!


The way Gourmet Society operates its membership may be perfectly legal, but it's entirely unethical.

Ian011

annetheman wrote: »

They had an 0845 number in the past, I think the number of complaints meant trading standards forced them to change it to an 0800 number.

The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 came into force on 13 June 2014. Regulation 41 requires retailers, traders and passenger transport companies to use numbers starting 01, 02, 03 or 080 for post sales helplines. This also applies where you have paid for membership.