I owe U of I College of Law some props

[NOTTHOR]

for my education. I bought some freaking max power workout DVD crap for my wife a year and a half ago. I used her credit card and name and everything, but I filled in the page on the internet for her.

We run up about $5k or so average per month on our credit cards and I never check my wife's card (which is linked to mine) other than to make sure there is nothing outrageous on it. So then this morning, she is checking it and there is some internet charge for almost $40 for some shit she swears she didn't order. So I get on the phone and this gal in India said "When you purchase videos from us, you are automatically enrolled in our team beach body.com training program that gives you access to the team beach body.com website that sets up personalized diet and exercise programs. If you don't cancel within 30 days, you are charged every three months."

I fucking flipped. I asked her how many times they charged me and she said I ordered in December 2007 so they charged me about $40 six times. So I get on the webpage and tell her there is no fucking way I would check any box to sign up for some shit like that. I check the webpage and the terms and conditions and there is no reference to the fucking training program anywhere. I then immediately ask for a copy of my purchase order and a report of how many times I accessed the site. She said she didn't have access to either. Next question - address of GC and address for service of legal process.

Supervisor in India gets on the horn. She reverses the last two charges and cancels the account, but says that is all she can do and I will have to call the headquarters in California for anything else or to get the name of the general counsel or address for service.

I then read the terms and conditions and reviewed the checkout page carefully. www.beachbody.com/checkout/checkout.do There ain't shit about automatic enrollment in some fucking plan.

I call the main office and lead with the old "I have a billing issue and I believe that your company has unlawfully charged me for a service that I did not contract for. I am going to bring suit, contact my state attorney general and the FTC to investigate your deceptive and unfair trade practices. Can you please give me the name and contact information for your general counsel and the address at which your company accepts service of process?" Straight to the supervisor line. I repeat the request and then give them my wife's phone number, which they use to look up the account information and then give me some story about "Oh, this is the first time this has ever happened. We are very sorry. We will promptly refund all the money you have been billed." I hung up satisfied, but I still call bullshit.

I'm going to poke around on ripoff report and other similar consumer protection sites to see if this is their practice. There is no fucking click through signing you up for the service and there is nothing about this scam in the terms and conditions. They gave up way too easy when I asked for the GC's contact information, if they thought they had a contract with me, they would have put up a fight. It sounds like a sham fucking operation to me and the last thing they want is some government agency or plaintiffs lawyer bringing the fucking scheme down.

[socal]

Way to accept responsibility for your actions there BTR... are you also trying to get a bailout for your mortgage or trying to recoup your losses from the casino as being unfair?

As you said, you don't follow your wife's CC actions. It's also apparent you don't know the checkout process she went through when she made the purchase.

There are many ways the company could have legally sold her the membership to their site - the fact you stupidly didn't look at your credit card bills close enough for 2 years isn't the fault of the company, it rests with someone else.

[NOTTHOR]

Materiality threshold, my man. Companies perpetrating schemes like this are relying on sliding below the radar and having their withdrawals going unnoticed or when they are noticed, someone being a pushover and saying "okay, thanks for reversing the last charge, I guess I'll just have to eat those previous charges." I have over 100 charges a month and I have no idea what the hell my wife buys so I only look at her section of the bill for stuff that is over $100.

Look at the order page and the terms and conditions on that page. There is nothing in there about subscribing to a membership. I did all the checkout bullshit for my wife and I never let the thing enroll me in anything (I ALWAYS OPT OUT). I checked ripoff report and there were numerous complaints similar to mine where people were auto enrolled either by phone or internet. I found my printed purchase order in my giant drawer of receipts and contracts and it doesn't say shit about any type of membership. It was a purchase of a freaking DVD. I also checked my wife's emails (she saves them all) around the time of the order and the company didn't even send an email order confirmation or the password to access the site that is part of the alleged membership.

Unlike a casino or a mortgage company, this is not a company that is entering into valid, enforceable contracts, and I suspect that they know it, thus whenever confronted with someone asking for a copy of the purchase agreement and terms and conditions governing the membership and asking about the legal department contact, their playbook is to refund, refund, refund ASAP. If this company had a valid contract with me, I gladly would have paid their bullshit fees, but they didn't. Try calling your mortgage company and asserting that you don't have a contract with them. Let me know how far that gets you.

I have a buddy who does consumer class actions here in Chi, I'm going to tip him off on this little scheme, if the company is big enough, it could be a very fat payday for him.

[socal]

Apr 26, 2009 10:45:14 GMT -6 NOTTHOR said:

Materiality threshold, my man. Companies perpetrating schemes like this are relying on sliding below the radar and having their withdrawals going unnoticed or when they are noticed, someone being a pushover and saying "okay, thanks for reversing the last charge, I guess I'll just have to eat those previous charges." I have over 100 charges a month and I have no idea what the hell my wife buys so I only look at her section of the bill for stuff that is over $100.

Look at the order page and the terms and conditions on that page. There is nothing in there about subscribing to a membership. I did all the checkout bullshit for my wife and I never let the thing enroll me in anything (I ALWAYS OPT OUT). I checked ripoff report and there were numerous complaints similar to mine where people were auto enrolled either by phone or internet. I found my printed purchase order in my giant drawer of receipts and contracts and it doesn't say shit about any type of membership. It was a purchase of a freaking DVD. I also checked my wife's emails (she saves them all) around the time of the order and the company didn't even send an email order confirmation or the password to access the site that is part of the alleged membership.

Unlike a casino or a mortgage company, this is not a company that is entering into valid, enforceable contracts, and I suspect that they know it, thus whenever confronted with someone asking for a copy of the purchase agreement and terms and conditions governing the membership and asking about the legal department contact, their playbook is to refund, refund, refund ASAP. If this company had a valid contract with me, I gladly would have paid their bullshit fees, but they didn't. Try calling your mortgage company and asserting that you don't have a contract with them. Let me know how far that gets you.

I have a buddy who does consumer class actions here in Chi, I'm going to tip him off on this little scheme, if the company is big enough, it could be a very fat payday for him.

There may be nothing on the site NOW, but e-commerce sites redesign pages on a regular basis. You're talking about 2007, so it's quite possible they changed their functionality. Do you also have a copy of the packing slip and other included documentation?

If the company placed their true phone number on your CC statements, and refunded a charge upon request... you're kind of howling at the moon again.

As an FYI... it is standard practice for e-commerce sites I know to refund charges considered erroneous once made aware of them. It may boost your ego a bit to think you showed them... but they could likely give a crap about you or your ambulance chasing buddy. If they actually needed to provide any documentation, I'd bet they would. As it is- you got your money back, and customers in similar situations likely got the same.

Let it be a lesson to you to spend the 3 minutes it takes to peruse the 100 transaction lines on a more regular basis - instead of your bi-annual scan and rant.
As an attorney, reading 100 lines of anything should be no problem... right?

[NOTTHOR]

Apr 26, 2009 18:58:50 GMT -6 socal said:

There may be nothing on the site NOW, but e-commerce sites redesign pages on a regular basis. You're talking about 2007, so it's quite possible they changed their functionality. Do you also have a copy of the packing slip and other included documentation?

If the company placed their true phone number on your CC statements, and refunded a charge upon request... you're kind of howling at the moon again.

As an FYI... it is standard practice for e-commerce sites I know to refund charges considered erroneous once made aware of them. It may boost your ego a bit to think you showed them... but they could likely give a crap about you or your ambulance chasing buddy. If they actually needed to provide any documentation, I'd bet they would. As it is- you got your money back, and customers in similar situations likely got the same.

Let it be a lesson to you to spend the 3 minutes it takes to peruse the 100 transaction lines on a more regular basis - instead of your bi-annual scan and rant.
As an attorney, reading 100 lines of anything should be no problem... right?

Sorry pal, I'm pretty anal when I buy shit online. I have the page that with the "place order" button and the order confirmation page that came up next. The order page was substantially the same and there was nothing about some fugazi membership on it. Same with the confirmation page. I will admit that I do not have the packing slip, however, contrary to what you may have been led to believe from watching Matlock or Judge Judy, placing a non-bargained for term in the fine print of a packing slip is NOT valid assent to contract for a recurring service. The contract has to be bargained for at the time the order is placed.

My class action buddy's old man is a big swinging cock who has hit on a few lottery cases (cases that kick off retirement level money) but he still files class actions and does PI because he hates assholes and genuinely cares about the people who get shat on (well, as long as they will kick off a big contingency fee anyway). The problem is that I couldn't be the lead plaintiff bince I already was made whole and frankly, I'd rather have my money back than waive any claim and get a voucher for a DVD my wife will never watch while the lawyer walks away with $5 million in legal fees. Plus, I'm not sure how Dubya's class action BS would impact something like this.

The lesson I learned from this is NEVER fucking charge anything on my wife's account because she never looks at her part of the bill because someone else is paying it. If that shit was on my piece of the bill, I probably would have been on it like on stink on shit.