My world has been so crazy lately! Blogging has really been the furthest thing from my mind! However, I feel it is my duty as a cyber citizen to protect my fellow internet comrades from the e-commerce predators out there.
I have been on the phone for the past 2 1/2 hours trying to determine the origin of the 300 WhiteSmile charges on my credit card bill!! If I weren't so damn mad, I'd probably be too embarrassed to tell the world about it. My online shopping compulsion often gets the best of me. This time it kicked my ass!
Back in July, I was on the internet doing some research. I don't know what the heck for...maybe the meaning of life? Or how to be a successful bulimic? Who knows. While perusing the volumes of information on this nebulous subject, I came across Heather's blog. It caught my eye because she claimed to be from Munford, Tennessee! Since that is my area, I wanted to support a fellow blogger. The blog even has a picture of Heather, a cute girl around 25-30ish. The blog was entitled, "Heather's Very First Blog: A blog about living life & staying young."
The blog started off with some talk about how she'd done a lot of research and found some pretty clever ways to stay young and healthy. She added that the blog was totally her friends' idea. Then she proceeds to talk about these teeth whitening products that she discovered. She even uses BOLD letters and several exclamation points !!!!! to report that she got some secretive promotional code in order to get the products for free.
I know what you are all thinking... "Oh, LB... How could you be so dumb? I can't believe you fell for that!" I can't believe it either. As an eternal pessimist, I am always looking for the catch. What made Heather so believable was her insistence that you use two products combined. She wasn't selling one product for one company. She was actually saying that you had to use the two products from two different makers together to get such fabulous effects.
In my eyes, she must be legit. After all, Coca-Cola doesn't recommend that you mix Pepsi with Dr. Pepper for a more robust flavor. You don't see Nike telling you that their shoes really look much better when worn with Reebok socks. It's ridiculous to think that two competing products in the same market would work together to lure unsuspecting consumers into their evil marketing trap.
WRONG! The whole freakin' thing was a hoax. Heather (or whoever she is) probably isn't from Munford. They probably figured out where I lived from one of my many internet searches and included that detail into "Heather's" story!!!! Furthermore, there are NO two different companies! On my credit card bill, both of the products were billed under the same name but from different parts of the country.
Because I had to pay a mere $1.95 for shipping and handling, those bogus companies got my credit card info. (When will I ever LEARN???) Ever since receiving my FREE samples of these teeth whitening products, my credit card has been hit with over $200 in charges! After several phone calls, I was able to return some of the product for a refund. Only the "refund" has yet to hit my credit card statement. In addition, I was unable to receive a refund for part of the products.
Apparently, though the two companies act as one when billing, they are not one when it comes to refunds. Now the company that I finally got a response from is saying that the other charges were from a completely different company. However, they "conveniently" had access to the other company's phone number. When I called company #2, they informed me that my grace period had expired. WTF??? I'd been talking to company #1 during the said "grace" period believing that it was also the recipient of the funds received by company #2. Since I'd canceled with company #1, I assumed (bad word; bad idea) all was hunky-dory!
Are you still with me? My head is on fire right now, I'm so mad! The bad thing is I honestly do not know what to do about it. Instead of refusing to pay and disputing the charges with my credit card company first, I went to the company itself and tried to handle it. That was my first mistake. Ya see, the credit card company isn't going to give me a refund for something that I've technically already paid the bill for.
Moral to the story??? If I find Heather in Munford, I'm going to kick in those freakin' sparkling white teeth! Here's a link to her blog:
http://www.heatherswhiteteethblog.com/
and if you see her, get me on the 411... Her ass is mine!
I have been on the phone for the past 2 1/2 hours trying to determine the origin of the 300 WhiteSmile charges on my credit card bill!! If I weren't so damn mad, I'd probably be too embarrassed to tell the world about it. My online shopping compulsion often gets the best of me. This time it kicked my ass!
Back in July, I was on the internet doing some research. I don't know what the heck for...maybe the meaning of life? Or how to be a successful bulimic? Who knows. While perusing the volumes of information on this nebulous subject, I came across Heather's blog. It caught my eye because she claimed to be from Munford, Tennessee! Since that is my area, I wanted to support a fellow blogger. The blog even has a picture of Heather, a cute girl around 25-30ish. The blog was entitled, "Heather's Very First Blog: A blog about living life & staying young."
The blog started off with some talk about how she'd done a lot of research and found some pretty clever ways to stay young and healthy. She added that the blog was totally her friends' idea. Then she proceeds to talk about these teeth whitening products that she discovered. She even uses BOLD letters and several exclamation points !!!!! to report that she got some secretive promotional code in order to get the products for free.
I know what you are all thinking... "Oh, LB... How could you be so dumb? I can't believe you fell for that!" I can't believe it either. As an eternal pessimist, I am always looking for the catch. What made Heather so believable was her insistence that you use two products combined. She wasn't selling one product for one company. She was actually saying that you had to use the two products from two different makers together to get such fabulous effects.
In my eyes, she must be legit. After all, Coca-Cola doesn't recommend that you mix Pepsi with Dr. Pepper for a more robust flavor. You don't see Nike telling you that their shoes really look much better when worn with Reebok socks. It's ridiculous to think that two competing products in the same market would work together to lure unsuspecting consumers into their evil marketing trap.
WRONG! The whole freakin' thing was a hoax. Heather (or whoever she is) probably isn't from Munford. They probably figured out where I lived from one of my many internet searches and included that detail into "Heather's" story!!!! Furthermore, there are NO two different companies! On my credit card bill, both of the products were billed under the same name but from different parts of the country.
Because I had to pay a mere $1.95 for shipping and handling, those bogus companies got my credit card info. (When will I ever LEARN???) Ever since receiving my FREE samples of these teeth whitening products, my credit card has been hit with over $200 in charges! After several phone calls, I was able to return some of the product for a refund. Only the "refund" has yet to hit my credit card statement. In addition, I was unable to receive a refund for part of the products.
Apparently, though the two companies act as one when billing, they are not one when it comes to refunds. Now the company that I finally got a response from is saying that the other charges were from a completely different company. However, they "conveniently" had access to the other company's phone number. When I called company #2, they informed me that my grace period had expired. WTF??? I'd been talking to company #1 during the said "grace" period believing that it was also the recipient of the funds received by company #2. Since I'd canceled with company #1, I assumed (bad word; bad idea) all was hunky-dory!
Are you still with me? My head is on fire right now, I'm so mad! The bad thing is I honestly do not know what to do about it. Instead of refusing to pay and disputing the charges with my credit card company first, I went to the company itself and tried to handle it. That was my first mistake. Ya see, the credit card company isn't going to give me a refund for something that I've technically already paid the bill for.
Moral to the story??? If I find Heather in Munford, I'm going to kick in those freakin' sparkling white teeth! Here's a link to her blog:
http://www.heatherswhiteteethblog.com/
and if you see her, get me on the 411... Her ass is mine!
