Acai Berry - "colon cleansing tablets" signed up to "free trial" now €75/m out of CC.

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glynner

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I noticed a free trail for Acai berry online in April of this year and to avail of it all you had to do was pay for shipping of the free trial. I foolishly did and 3 months later €75.00 euro is been taken from my credit card every month.

When i saw the first payment going out i got a mail saying that as i had not returned them within the 15 day period i was being charged for them. I accepted that i did not notice this when i was putting in my details.

I phoned MBNA immediatly and they said that they cannot stop the payment as i have to contact the company and cancel my contract with them- i did not think i had a contract!

MBNA did however call them and put me through, I read the customer service person the riot act and they told me that i would recieve a mail in next 48hours stating that my details would be removed.

I checked my credit card online yesterday as it has happened again and I went through the same process phoning MBNA and they put me through to customer service saying i will get the 48 hour e-mail etc..

I have repeatedly mailed them and they do not reply to my mails.

I asked MBNA if i cancel my credit card will that stop the payments, they said no but they can possibly look for a refund next month if they take it again, but they were no help to me this month.

Has anyone any advice for me as to what i can do? I was so foolish and I am normally so careful. I feel i have no where to turn.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

glynner said:
I asked MBNA if i cancel my credit card will that stop the payments, they said no but they can possibly look for a refund next month if they take it again, but they were no help to me this month.
Click to expand...

I cannot understand why MBNA won't cancel your card unless you owe monies to MBNA. Clear your account asap and cancel the card. As for getting your money back, I'm afraid I'm at a loss. Good luck in your endeavours.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

MBNA said that if i cancel my card, it will stop future payments but not past payments and that the company can still take the money from my account and MBNA wont stop them !!!!!! i am at a loss to think why when the card is not in use anymore. MBNA will still bill me.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

If something sounds too good to be true ......

Is this company in the EU? If not where are they and do they come under any regulator?

I would clear my balance and cancel my card as I am guessing that now they have your details they will keep taking until you do so.

Be carefull where you buy online from.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

Thanks for this warning. I had been tempted myself.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

Hi There , I think I may have signed up to a similar scam 4 or 5 weeks ago, I never recieved a confirmation E-Mail or any samples etc. After coming across your post I tried to find the website that was offering the trial so I could try to get out of it but I cannot remember which one it was (they all look the same!!) can you tell me the name of the one you were scammed on please. The post for this free trial was $14.95 does this sound like your scenario(the card hasn't been billed yet), any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

hi all - i ordered a free trial this morning off of website:
[broken link removed].

Then i saw this thread about credit card charges. I immediately rang the company on +44 203 139 9027 to cancel my credit card details.

I was speaking to the customer service rep and she explained to me that when you enter your details on the initial screen that you are actually signing up to a full term contract with the company; whereby, you get the first inital trial free and then monthy subscriptions after that. To only get the trial free and to unsubscribe you need to call the number above.

I did just that and they are confirming with me via post in the next 2 days that i have unsubscribed for their product.

This info is on their 'terms and conditions' tab at the end of the url page above.

In my opinion - its a complete scam...ive taken the name of the customer service rep i was speaking to and notifed my bank as to not permit any payments to a company called 'VIV3LABS' which are the collectors for acai berry....!
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

I too got caught. Same phone number. They distribute 9,000 of these a day I learned as I spoke to the distributor in Scotland. I got charged for my free sample. A crowd connected with Trading Planet Ltd in the states also took money from my card. How I found out was a month later I got more samples and all in all I have lost 4 x £ 82.95. It's a total scam. Am also with MBNA. They are hopeless. Clear your card and close the account asap. It's all you can do. With that 1 distributor in scotland they make 1.5million a day.....I never did it before and I sure wont ever do it again. The credit card companies make it too easy for online fraudsters.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

It is not a scam.

If you read the terms and conditions of the free trial, it clearly states you will be sent non-free products every month if you do not cancel the free trial within 15 days.

Seriously, you should not be buying things online if you are not willing to read what you are paying for...
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

Why not just cancel your credit card? Report it lost, and you get issued a brand new card with new number etc.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

Update - sorry for not updating you all sooner but i have been busy with my challenge in getting my money back . After much heartache and trawling through websites i came across another individual in the UK that has set up a website it is [broken link removed] and she explains how she got her money back - i mailed her and she was very helpful

As i was dealing with a crowd in the US, I found a contact mail and started bombarding them with mails requesting them to cancel any membership that i may have signed up to and to refund me, I threathened them with the media, and solicitors, and finally recieved a response, they tried the terms of business angle with me but as i had kept any mail i sent them, i told them that i had adhered to their terms but they had failed in their terms as they ignored my mails and failed to carry out their end of the contract.

As i never accepted any of the products they sent me, they then asked me for proof of return of the product which i only got today from my local Post office as if you refuse a delivery it is sent back to the sender. I have recieved a mail this morning when i sent them the returned delivery references stating that they will refund my credit card, I wait with baited breath ..... if you want to PM me for any info i can give you i would be more then will ing to help anyone, I know it was stupid to give credit card details online- and its a lesson well learnt but these people are cleaning up and something needs to be done to stop the likes of these scammers.
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

glynner just curious to know if you got your money back. I foolishly signed up for the free trial this morning after reading an article in Irish Health (which I thought was repuatable (SP)). After ordering did my research and found out about the scam and rang Ulster bank to cancel transations - they wont!!! I explained the situation and she said nothing had come through so they had to wait for it to come through and then dispute it. I asked her could I report the card lost and cancel it that way and she said no, my husband the primary name on the card had to do that and that when I got my new card - the payment would just follow through on a subscription?? WHF? So they were no help at all. When DH comes home we have to close the whole account down
 
Re: Free trial Acai Berry website Beware

Just cancel the Visa card, report it lost or something, get a new one with new number etc, there's no way they can charge stuff to your new visa card if they don't know the number.

Assuming you signed up via a credit card.
 
I think it would be better if your not going to purchase online, there are a lot of scam online, that it is really hard to tell which is not or which is true, all we need to do is to be careful in dealing with everything...
 
manaboutdog said:
Just cancel the Visa card, report it lost or something, get a new one with new number etc, there's no way they can charge stuff to your new visa card if they don't know the number.

Assuming you signed up via a credit card.
Click to expand...

When I cancelled my card some years ago because of internet fraud Visa told me there would be no problem with things being redirected automatically from the old one to the new one.
 
Sue Ellen said:
When I cancelled my card some years ago because of internet fraud Visa told me there would be no problem with things being redirected automatically from the old one to the new one.
Click to expand...

Sue Elllen - do you mean that there is no problem with YOU redirecting things from the old to the new one - or do you mean that everything on the old one would automatically be redirected to the new one.
 
I recently fell for a similar "offer". The initial charge was €4.25 and I did not receive anything in the post for this. I ignored this as it was a small amount and figured I would get over it. The following month I was charged €104 and still received nothing in the post for same. I phoned VISA and told them that there were charges on my card that I did not recognise and could they investigate. They told me that I would have to cancel my card which I did and within a week both charges were refunded to me. I got the impression that this was a regular occurrence with VISA.

I wont be falling for anything like this again!
 
A "free trial" means that its free i.e. you do not have to pay for it. Therefore there is no reason for any company offering a free trial to ask you for your credit card number or any sort of payment. If they do, then there's a catch.
 
Thanks for creating this thread. I received a similar email today, stating of a free acai berry-colon cleansing tablets trial. I was very interested, so what I did is do a research first, just to be sure that this is not a scam. Good thing I saw this thread and now I know for sure.

Thanks again!


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