Hi Everyone,

I am trying to save a few folks from making the same mistake I did, with a little help from Visa Merchant Services and a little research...

I saw this great looking ad for Dazzle White, a tooth whitening product promising great results and a free trial, you just pay the shipping fee and get the product. One word... DON'T. If there's a cool looking product online or something that just seems to good to be true, believe me, it is.

What happened:

Well, I had paid for shipping fee (about 12-13 dollars depending on where you live) and received the tooth product within a couple weeks. The product itself was OK, nothing crest whitestrips couldn't do, to be honest. Next thing I knew, my Visa was being charged 26+ dollars (twice in one month) for a fitness membership that I never signed up to.

This was linked to the Dazzle White product. This is what the scam is: You sign up for the free product, and bam!, they get your credit card info, and SOMEWHERE (who knows where), the small print says that you're going to get signed up to a fitness club. Which, I never agreed to, nor ever would.

Next, I had a look at my Visa statement, and saw enough digits beside the charge to resemble a phone number, so I tried the number to get this all worked out. They did not greet me on the phone, just asked simply " what charge appeared on my statement" and prompted me for more information. I DID NOT GIVE THEM ANY MORE, and called Visa right away after finding out their website (which they will give you) and for an address, they only had a P.O. box number, so this WAS NOT EVEN A REAL GYM MEMBERSHIP TO BOOT!!!

How it got resolved:

Immediately, I called Viis to tell them what happened, and then passed me along to several people, but finally I got someone willing to CALL THE MERCHANT ON MY BEHALF. Within 15 minutes, the problem was resolved. SO MY ADVICE, let your credit card company phone on your behalf, because these guys will only keep bugging for your personal information, and the credit card company knows what information to give to get the matter resolved, and what to keep private.

After this was all confirmed, and most of the charges fixed (the sooner you stop this charging the better, because some debt cannot be recovered, as the credit card company views several transactions and NO SIGN of attempts to cancel, an indication of your permission to allow the charges to go through... BELIEVE ME, I KNOW!!! )


To add insult to injury...

During the same phone call with Visa, another Grants/ Loans company did the same thing to me. I signed up for a 2 dollar kit on getting gov't grants, and was pleased with the info received, but THAT company proceeded to charge me a fee for access/ service to their website to the tune of 52.00, twice!!! This got sorted out the same way.

I personally had no idea these types of scams were out there, but lesson learned, if something sounds to good to be true, it most likely is.
So save your credit card for consumables not shipping charges for freebies, even grants. If you want to get grants, go to your gov't office and talk to someone, otherwise... have fun sorting out w/ Visa!!!