Do NOT buy from the Free Trial ads at top of forum

[Chrissie]

I sadly have no control about the banner ads that are displayed at the top of this forum (unless I start paying for the forum to be ad free).

A member of another Proboard forum sent off for the free trial for the tooth whitening. That free trial ended up costing her hundreds of pounds

From looking at the e-cig banner ad, it looks like they are running the same scam. The free trial is NOT a free trial - far from it.

Please folks, don't hesitate to ask questions in this forum before buying.

[Scylla]

Thank you for continuing to look out for us, Chrissie

I reckon this could be a sticky ???

scylla

[Chrissie]

Scylla, it will stay at the top of the board in announcements so can't think of a reason to sticky it in the main discussion section ?

[Scylla]

It was duplicated down amid the regular messages, that's the one I blindly replied to ???

scylla

[Chrissie]

Scylla, I can't find any way of getting round announcements not showing up as a duplicate thread in the main board section.

If anyone knows how it can be done - please shout

[foxy9212]

I'm pleased to see this warning posted.

Although my credit card company have been very helpful and have repaid all the money I 'lost' by being caught out by a similar 'Free Trial' from another of this umbrella group's affiliates, it will be a very very long time before I can rest easy - I'm expecting money to be extracted from my account at any time and have to check my balance on-line every day, sometimes twice!

The 'Trial' is free, the product is NOT. If you keep it, you pay a huge amount for the doubtful privilege and are tied into some sort of subscription to other affiliated companies for an unspecified period and for unspecified amounts of money. It's worth noting that it's extremely difficult (if not impossible) to try any product and, if not wanted, to return it to the supplier in the U.S. within the short trial period.

To cancel means contacting many different companies to acquire the necessary cancellation numbers to obtain a refund and this is a very difficult exercise given that many of the phone numbers supplied simply don't work.

The above is, of course, based on personal experience and from the many complaints I've read around the 'Net.

Fox

[foxy9212]

Jan 3, 2010 10:34:23 GMT Chrissie said:

Scylla, I can't find any way of getting round announcements not showing up as a duplicate thread in the main board section.

If anyone knows how it can be done - please shout

There's nothing that can be done to prevent 'Announcements' from appearing on every board but this can be overcome but creating a "NOTICES' board. You can then bump the most important notice as and when you need to - it will show only in that specific location.

Fox

[Chrissie]

Thanks Fox for both lots of info

The friend who sent off for the free teeth whitening trial had hundreds of pounds taken from her bank account & the same as you Fox, found it ended up being a nightmare trying to stop the payments.

Re creating a notice board, I think for now I'll keep things as they are for now as I feel more people will see the warning on the main board. Lol in fact with the duplicate threads that announcements make, hopefully no-one will miss reading it

[foxy9212]

Another way to post a warning/disclaimer is in the News Fader - in Bold Red with a link to the warning thread!

Fox

[Chrissie]

Cheers Fox

I was trying to help out a newbie from Ireland on ECF this morning. They went for a "free" trial from Cleansmoke - exactly the same advert but yet another name

[Scylla]

Overnight (well, that's when I noticed) it's been saying at the top of the forum: Ads are currently disabled on all forums.

Either you arranged it, Chrissie, or there's something going on ???

scylla

[magicma]

Testing

[magicma]

Hi Scyll, re post above ^^^^^^ I was happily answering posts when, suddenly, it wouldn't let me reply to anything either by quick reply or reply - kept asking me to put security numbers in.
I rebooted and seems to be okay now - I hope!!

Re notice at top of forum. I have been on another Proboard and it is there as well and nobody in the group have put it there. They are hoping Proboards are having a clean up.
Hope you are still awake at the moment!!! MM

[Chrissie]

Nope it wasn't me Scylla

I'm hoping MM is right & proboards are having a clean up. I know they have had lots of complaints about the supposed "free trial" ads.

[Scylla]

I didn't go to sleep after all. I'm glad that the pro boards themselves have disabled the ads, hopefully because they've banned the current ones.

scylla