Vital Nature/My Shopping Corner/Gourmet Moments

realh

My mother has been conned by a company operating under the names above (in thread title). We think Phyderma, and some other names, may be the same company. They also phone regularly with automated messages saying to look out for postal correspondence about cash prizes, but those letters never come.

Their MO seems to be to get her to agree to order some items at a not too exorbitant price, but add extra worthless items at exorbitant prices that she did not order, or even create complete bogus orders. It's difficult to work out exactly what they're doing or to prove it, because she has vascular dementia and can't remember whether she made the orders or not, but she's not so far gone that she would agree to spend £25 on diet pills or laxatives.

I am 100% sure that at least one of the add-ons (diet pills) is bogus though, because they claim she validated it on a phone conversation on 28 November, and her phone log showed no calls at all were made or received on that day. Unfortunately that was just the phone's log, and it's since expired the log going back that far. If we want to report this to the authorities I don't know whether the onus is on us to prove the phone call didn't exist or the defendant to prove it did.

She sent one lot of unwanted pills back, but we don't know whether they ever refunded the money, and postage was expensive because they had to be sent to a PO Box in France. After the November order we emailed customerservices@vital-nature.co.uk asking for a prepaid returns label but received no reply. The invoice shows a French PO Box address in its header as well as the one for returns.

The bank has agreed to block any further payments to these companies, but not take any action about the previous transactions. Is there anything we can do?

daytona0

Please be advised that their website, vital-nature.co.uk, places A LOT of emphasis on telephone orders!! I can't seem to find any way of placing orders online, so it would appear that the contract of sale was formed over the telephone (and card details provided so that mother could be billed)..

So I think it is less about proving that a call exists and more about proving possible underhanded tactics used by the company.

Why not ask the company to provide you with a transcript (may incur a cost to you) so that you can see what was discussed by the company and your mother?

I don't like situations like this because, whilst the items may be a pile of junk, there is every possibility that your mother entered into a perfectly valid contract in this situation.