Seems like a lot of box subscription companies are gonna need to do some work this holiday season. There are a lot of companies out there who are also posing as US entities when they're really based overseas and have small LLCs as US affiliates who sell whitelisted products who will be affected too.
Recently I purchased a yearly subscription for an app from a foreign "health" company and after the checkout process, I was presented with some supplement options. These options were showing a discount on a per-month basis, but were also deceptively packaged in such a way that (a) the price was actually per month, and (b) if you chose ANY of the items on the screen, you were immediately billed for them without checkout.
Realizing that they just hit me for $270 for half a year's supply of supplements, I immediately sent an email to their customer service that I wanted my money refunded because I did not intend to pay a quarter grand on what were essentially fiber pills. These are shipped from a California warehouse. It was past midnight CST.
Twenty minutes later, I receive an email telling me that they are sorry but my order has been processed and there's nothing they can do, but if I wanted, they could send RMA instructions on the package. Their terms of service dictates that they have a "no-refund" policy and will only accept returns if there is physical damage to the shipped product. I asked again, and was rebutted again with the same sort of nonsense. Nobody was processing an order for a small goods company in California after midnight.
Welp... my next email to them informed the customer service rep that it was past midnight in California so no shipping had occurred. That I worked for a company with local and national news reach and I would be glad to share the information of my story, the app, the company name, and the parent company name with reporters who would be interested in covering deceptive business practices.
10 minutes later, I received an email apologizing for their transgression and another confirming that the charges were reversed.
Recently I purchased a yearly subscription for an app from a foreign "health" company and after the checkout process, I was presented with some supplement options. These options were showing a discount on a per-month basis, but were also deceptively packaged in such a way that (a) the price was actually per month, and (b) if you chose ANY of the items on the screen, you were immediately billed for them without checkout.
Realizing that they just hit me for $270 for half a year's supply of supplements, I immediately sent an email to their customer service that I wanted my money refunded because I did not intend to pay a quarter grand on what were essentially fiber pills. These are shipped from a California warehouse. It was past midnight CST.
Twenty minutes later, I receive an email telling me that they are sorry but my order has been processed and there's nothing they can do, but if I wanted, they could send RMA instructions on the package. Their terms of service dictates that they have a "no-refund" policy and will only accept returns if there is physical damage to the shipped product. I asked again, and was rebutted again with the same sort of nonsense. Nobody was processing an order for a small goods company in California after midnight.
Welp... my next email to them informed the customer service rep that it was past midnight in California so no shipping had occurred. That I worked for a company with local and national news reach and I would be glad to share the information of my story, the app, the company name, and the parent company name with reporters who would be interested in covering deceptive business practices.
10 minutes later, I received an email apologizing for their transgression and another confirming that the charges were reversed.