I signed up for the 7-days free trial at
foreclosure.com, thinking nowadays it's safe to put your credit card
information in the hand of an internet service company. After all, I had been
using all kinds of internet services for years, never had any issue with any
company. To my superise, this was the first time I
experienced the rip-off practice on the internet. After registering with my
credit information and receiving the access code, I copied and pasted
the access code into the login box, but the website gave me
"That access number does not exist" message. I tried many times on
many different dates, the results were all the same.
To make sure I was not going to be changed
for a service that I was never able to use, I followed the instruction on the foreclosure
website to cancel my registration before the 7-day "free trial"
expired. The website gave me the exact same message as on the login page:
"That access number does not exist". I tried many times, the
results were all the same.
I didn't understand what was wrong with their
system and just thought if my account did not exist then I would not be
charged. I later discovered other real-estate professional websites that
provide unlimited free access to enormous property databases and that have all-kinds
of well-thought out features and tools. I found a few dream homes for myself,
my relatives and friends at the rock-bottom prices by using those websites.
Because I was busy with finding and visiting the properties, making offers and
closing sales, I did not double check my credit card bills with
my husband, who paid all bills.
I later found out I was charged over $100
fees for three months service that I was never allowed to access. After
speaking to the custom service at foreclosure.com, they refunded me two month
fees as "curtsy", but still charged me one month service fees.
My advice: don't sign up with a website that
provides folly "free" service. Use professional, really free websites
such as ziprealty.com, realtor.com, realtor.org, trulia.com that
provide property information for not just foreclosures, short sales, but also
regular sales that enable you to find your dream home. If you really want to
check out bank owned properties that have not come to the market with the price
tag, use (((competitor's name redacted))).
sorry, allowing you to give a competitors name would instigate others to just file against their competition, to only come back later to suggest their company, ..plus, if you post a competitors name more than likely they will show up on search engines as a Rip-off! - - your comments on this policy are welcome. CLICK here to see why Rip-off Report, as a matter of policy, deleted either a phone number, link or e-mail address from this Report. In this case we removed an alleged competitors name
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Foreclosure.com
Boca Raton,Florida,
United States of America
We're always standing by to help!
#2UPDATE Employee
Fri, January 08, 2010
Unfortunately, I cannot fully comment on this particular case without looking into the account to see what happened.
I do not know why the access code was not working. What I would recommend is that if you sign up for a service -- and are given a code to use that service and the code doesn't work -- I would contact customer service to look into the problem as soon as possible rather than assuming that your account was shut down and that you would not be billed.
We also offer an automated option to have your access code emailed to you, so it can be verified that you have the correct code. On our "Contact Us" page on the Web site we list our local number, toll free number, email, mailing address, and hours of operation so our customers can contact us if there are any questions.
In addition, our company name and toll free number appears on your credit card/bank account statement every month so that we may be contacted right away if there is an issue with the billing.
In short, we give our customers as many options as possible to contact us to discuss billing issues, Web site search tips and just about everything else you can imagine. We have a knowledgeable team of customer support professionals available during normal business hours -- these are real live people ... it's not automated.
If we are contacted with an issue like this we will try to assist, but if we are not contacted about an issue for an extended amount of time then we may not be able to issue a full refund.
Hope that helps.