I’d like to add Jeff to my LinkedIn network! mb he could get me a VIP discount…
Is it perfectly obvious to everybody except me this company is deceiving people?
Agreed, I didn’t see much deception here either. Seems pretty standard that you can’t cancel an order while its in transit for example. This seems like a good example of social media giving some people an overly loud voice.
But…but…but, like Jeff says they’re trying so hard, can’t you cut them a little slack?
I’m reminded of the time I was robbing a guy at knifepoint. Near the end of our otherwise amicable transaction he looked at my face so I cut him. We both agreed that it was unnecessary and that next time I’d definitely communicate better my wish to remain anonymous or take that extra step and wear a mask.
So, we both learned something from each other and I think that should count for something, don’t you?
I even offered him a discount subscription to my knifing robbery, just 5$ a month, but he declined. I signed him up anyway since I had in fact taken his wallet.
Can you elaborate on what part of this deal seems like a robbery to you?
There’s a typo in
You can see the full legal action page (w/evidence as well as correspondence with the company).
Here’s the proper link for those of you on devices without proper keyboards
You can see the full legal action page (w/evidence as well as correspondence with the company).
Thanks for the fixed link. I tried earlier today and I couldn’t see full complaint.
ETA: I looked at the complaint to the District Attorney in California and it included a complaint made by a person trying to cancel. Incredible. No one to contact and a four-page cancellation quiz?!
When you buy the cheap underwear you sign up for their VIP plan which includes a monthly payment of $40. It’s not clear you are signing up for this ongoing payment.
That monthly payment includes an order but if you don’t make the order within a certain window of time every month it goes to store credit.
The conditions to cancel the subscription are onerous.
It is dodgy as fuck.
I’d be more apt to use a different analogy: it’s a well-executed e-mail scam. See, the clever people know there’s a trick to it - they just don’t reply. But many people don’t see the trick. It’s hidden. There’s obfuscation. Everything SEEMS legit! But there’s misdirection. Misleading information. It’s damn difficult to get out once you’re in, too - see, they get to tell you when you can leave. And then they make it hard. Can’t do it in the middle of something, see. Can’t do it while we’re busy. Gotta make it convenient for us if you want us to stop charging you.
Technically someone who read all the Ts & Cs and clicked their little drop down and who was on the look-out for a scam like this might be able to avoid it (my alarm bells start ringing whenever something like “the first month free”! or something like that pops up), but your “average consumer” might not be savvy enough. Even someone who WANTED to sign up for a recurring service and who later decided they didn’t want it would be hard pressed to get out of it.
They could avoid this just by making it more clear that your signing up for a service (not just ordering a pair of panties and a bra), and by making it easier to opt out of that service (it should be as easy as visiting their website and cancelling your account, and you should be able to do it at any time, though maybe they charge your card on a certain date each month so if it’s after that date, well, too late for this month).
The issue is about canceling your membership, not an order. You should be able to cancel your membership at any time; doing so should have no effect on any orders in transit since those have already been placed and presumably paid for.
As for overall deception, the company is being vague at best about the terms and conditions since they are not made clear up front and are buried in a page of legalese that is all but hidden.
What? Now grifting isn’t robbery?
Oh, I understand all that, and I’ll admit I haven’t studied their website, because for some reason I kept getting distracted. Trouble is, there’s a huge gray area in between “you didn’t tell me” and “I didn’t read the instructions.” That’s why the opinion of the internet doesn’t matter.
The opinion of the FTC matters, because they get paid to pile up all the folders and decide that company X has 1,000 complaints and company Y has one, and even if that one complaint is in ALL CAPS, there might be a better solution than shutting the bastards down, and maybe they should pursue X instead.
The whole automatic rebilling thing is pretty creepy, I’ll agree. AOL tried to make it impossible for me to quit, many years ago, and I hear Comcast and TWC are just as bad today. There’s a much much bigger problem with that business practice, and the only solution is legislation. The Internet Outrage Machine is a lot more fun that government policy, but it doesn’t always work out well.
*Or maybe the unelected bureaucrats over at CFPB could address it.
To me, they cross the line because they offer you a discount price, the condition of the discount is becoming a VIP member, and they bury the fact that becoming a VIP member is a $40 a month subscription.
I don’t think a reasonable person would expect there to be that ongoing subscription, so I think it should be made very clear. That ongoing commitment should at least be shown clearly in the checkout process. It’s unreasonable to expect someone to have to read the T&Cs to uncover that cost, and it seems in all likelihood they want to hide it.
Good point.
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