I responded to a free 14-day trial subscription offer for a download service on the BINVERSE website. Binverse requested a US$ 1 payment via PayPal to check if I am a bonafide customer and to activate the trial subscription. Apparently Binverse uses this as a fraudulent ploy to get a billing agreement without your knowledge. Although I never installed the software of Binverse and did not download anything during the 14-day trial period, PayPal charged me for the full subscription fee for a 1 year period through PayPal.

I have never authorised PayPal for this payment en I was not aware that automatic/recurrent payments are possible via PayPal. I filed a complaint with PayPal and was shocked to learn that PayPal quickly choose the side of Binverse, claiming that I had authoirsed Binvers for automatic billing. In my view PayPal thereby has become part of the scam.

I have advised PayPal to stop doing business with fraudulent merchants like Binverse (they must have received more complaints) and to do more to protect their customers. For example, PayPal could ask confirmation from their customers for automatic payment agreements with merchants, before an automatic billing agreement comes into force.

Be warned for so-called "free trials" from Binverse, and refuse to make trial payments no matter how small before checking the reputation of the merchant.