Warning! Do not order from the free trials ads

[vcmazz]

Oh dear. I think I could be in trouble. I've been vaping for a couple of weeks. Before that, I was trying ecigs and received an email from a company offering a free trial.

It was very deceptive, because there were three 'subscription options', all of which I opted out of. I just paid £4.95 postage for the trial kit and assumed that was it.

Logged in to my bank account tonight and these b******* have taken a further £59.95 from my account. I've sent them a very strong email but I don't suppose it will do any good. I've phoned the bank and they DO assure me that cancelling my card will stop them taking any more money, so I hope they're right and you are wrong about that Roxy. But it seems my £59.95 is gone forever.

I'd love to name and shame them right here but won't do so unless I get the OK from a mod. >

[Jemima]

Name and shame if you want to Mazz, its good to know who to watch out for as well as who to praise

[vcmazz]

Thank you. It's a company called Clearsmoke.

clearsmoke.co.uk/

I'm going to hound them for my money back but I know it's unlikely. I'll keep you posted of any developments.

To give you even more of an idea as to how devious they are, when you apply for their 'free trial', you suddenly find that you have to pay £7.95 p&p. If you then decide not to go ahead and try to close the page, you get a 'wait - don't go, just pay £4.95' message.

VERY unlike me to fall for something like this. I was very tired. :-[

[Jemima]

They can catch out the best of us when we aren't fully concentrating Mazz. Fingers crossed you get this sorted out though. Any chance your stil within the "cooling off " period and can return it ?

Thanks for shareing the name, hopefully someone will read this and they might ge tthe same pop up and it will ring a bell and they will be able to avoid it, although I'm sorry it came at your expense. Please keep us informed if you find any more info. GL!

[alvoram]

Looks as if it was one of those "trial the ecig, return it if you don't like it, or pay 59.95 to keep it" jobbies. Whilst I feel sorrry for you, and it is harsh on you, as it seems you didn't read the offer properly. It is in all their terms and conditions, ( clearsmoke.co.uk/faqs.aspx#witrft ) and they wouldn't have continued to take money from your card, just payment for the goods you trialled and decided to keep. which is not the scam this thread is talking about. So I think it is a little unfair to name and shame them in the same light as the scam companies. just my opinion though.

Whilst their sales tactics are a little shady, they do seem like a fairly reputable company, and if you keep contacting them, and return the goods, you may be able to get a refund.

[vcmazz]

Will do. I've sent them a very strong email but I've since Google searched 'Clearsmoke scam' and I think I'll be getting a stock reply (if any) about how it was in their terms and conditions. I'll follow that up with a phone call but will no doubt hit the same brick wall.

[vcmazz]

Feb 15, 2012 1:59:12 GMT alvoram said:

Looks as if it was one of those "trial the ecig, return it if you don't like it, or pay 59.95 to keep it" jobbies. Whilst I feel sorrry for you, and it is harsh on you, as it seems you didn't read the offer properly. It is in all their terms and conditions, ( clearsmoke.co.uk/faqs.aspx#witrft ) and they wouldn't have continued to take money from your card, just payment for the goods you trialled and decided to keep. which is not the scam this thread is talking about. So I think it is a little unfair to name and shame them in the same light as the scam companies. just my opinion though.

Whilst their sales tactics are a little shady, they do seem like a fairly reputable company, and if you keep contacting them, and return the goods, you may be able to get a refund.

You are of course entitled to your opinion. Yes, this information can be found deep within the bowels of their terms and conditions but they deliberately mislead people. Nowhere else on the email I received or on their main site was there any mention of any further payment being taken. It is deliberately designed to look like a 'loss leader', the intention being that they give you something for free in the hope that you subscribe for monthly supplies. This is what makes it look plausable to the victim. It is deliberate deception at best, a fraudulant scam at worst. They certainly deserve to be named and shamed and indeed anyone connected to them should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves and their devious practices.

Ask yourself these questions. Are these people deliberately trying to trick people out of hard earned money? If not, why are they not upfront about the deal on their main pages and emails? Why bury them deep in the terms and conditons? Is that reputable behaviour? Out and out theiving, conning scammers. That is my opinion.

[alvoram]

yeh it's shady to say the least mate. I am a sucker for it, we should always check terms and conditions, but I rarely do. Apparently it was on the page where you enter your details / login too, but I read that on MSE, so don't know if it's true. If it is, and that was the only place it was written, again it's very clever and shady tactics, as you'd have been concentrating on entering your details correctly.

Oh by all means, name and shame them, the more that know, and don't repeat the mistake the better, I just meant that it's not quite as bad as the scams I've before, because they wouldn't have repeatedly take your money from your card etc, without ever telling you anywhere that they will, tell you when or tell you how much.

[alvoram]

Oh and out of interest, how long after ordering did you recieve your kit? Did they give you a reasonable amount of time to trial it and send it back if you'd wanted to? Because that seems to be a common tactic of free trial scams, not delivering the goods until after the return period has ended.

[vcmazz]

It only took a few days for their '£60 kit ' that would have cost £16 or £17 elsewhere for something simular to arrive.

I've just been reading up elsewhere. It seems this email link took me to a page not on view at the main site (makes sense I guess, as the 'free offer' wasn't available on their main site. It would also appear that on none of the pages I was directed to was there a link to their terms and conditions, or anything at all about this '15 day, return or pay' arrangement and the only place it could be found was on a tiny link on the order confirmation email which nobody is likely to check.

Seriously unpleasant people and I shall be looking at consumer groups that might be able to take action if they don't refund my money.

I guess first things first. Let's see what they have to say.

[alvoram]

If that's the case I'd definitely fight it to the bitter end, phone calls and all, pointing out that you weren't given the terms until you'd completed the order, I think that's illegal, although I could be wrong.

[domesticextremist]

I'm with alvo on this one, it's a 'fine print' scam of the first order.
Even the large corporations are doing this now, getting you to sign up
for stuff with all sorts of get out clauses for themselves that make you
liable to pay (e.g. broadband services, insurance etc), and yet you or I
get criminalised for downloading some tuppenny hapenny piece of music.

In the case of Clearsmoke, Trading Standards may be able to help...

[Gordy]

nothing is free - just my 2 pence worth

[vcmazz]

Feb 15, 2012 11:19:40 GMT Gordy said:

nothing is free - just my 2 pence worth

A bit of a myth that people readily and wrongly accept as fact. There is a lot out there that is free and I therefore see your 2p and raise you 4p.

Even if we accept and go along with the theory that 'nothing is free', does that give companies like Clearsmoke the right to deliberately misdirect and decieve people with the obvious intention of trying to trick them out of money?

Just because what they do may be technically legal, that doesn't make it ethical.

I would suggest there is a big question mark over it's legality anyway because whilst the victim may have unwittingly agreed to let them pillage his or her bank account (and therefore they may not have broken a law there), there is more than one legal aspect to consider with their nasty, snidey little operation and deception and fraud are still offences in this country.

I haven't had a reply to my email as yet and I won't ring them at this stage because I am incapable of remaining calm and rational with what would no doubt be their list of stock answers on the telephone. I would just lose it so it's best I don't call. I will give them until the end of the day and if they haven't replied I will email them again, giving them until close of business tomorrow to to confirm that they have refunded my money before reporting the matter to Trading Standards as domesticextremist suggests.

[Gordy]

obviously people dont accept it readily enough or they wouldn't get caught by these 'scams' ask yourself why do you think they would give you anything for free ?

the website in question offers a risk free trial however you wish to interpret risk it doesn't say the product if free. in fact clearly states you have 15 days to cancel and return the item or you will be charged £59.95 for it. Im sorry you got caught out or didn't read the info correctly but they are not really doing anything illegal.

if your email actually says free trial then you may have a case and expect the item to in fact be free.