Complaint Review: IT Cosmetics

My mother is an elderly woman who is heavily medicated on pain medications and suffering from Alzheimer's.  Because she can't sleep at night, she turns on the TV and gets sucked into all sorts of beauty advertising for makeup and wrinkle creams, and falls for "FREE TRIALS" because she is incapable of understanding that she is signing up for recurring charges to their credit cards that are impossible to stop.

In November of 2016, she ordered a "kit" of IT Cosmetic products after seeing them on QVC. She contacted what she thought was IT Cosmetics, but I've later found out it's Guthy Renker selling a kit of makeup (you only find this out after contacting IT Cosmetics website customer service), because IT Cosmetics' site only sells individual cosmetics, OR AT LEAST THAT'S WHAT I WAS TOLD THIS TIME.  What I learned early on was that she had committed to a $59 kit that would be autodrafted every three months, and that the "only way she could order" was to agree to those terms.  I later learned that IT Cosmetics are even available on Amazon and ULTA beauty stores, and that it's a subsidiary of a commonly available low-cost cosmetics brand that would never charge the prices that this company is charging unsuspecting customers.

The paperwork sent with the kit said that the return period was 30 days, but there was another section that said 60 days, but you had to choose a return reason.  It looked like they would only accept money-back guarantee returns if you chose the "correct" response, but nonetheless, there was conflicting information on their paperwork.  I called the company listed on the IT Cosmetics website, they confirmed 60-day returns, and I got the return address and authorization to return the product.

However, today my father received a "past due invoice" for an additional $79.90.  After verifying that the kit was received (USPS tracking number), I used the company's chat feature to ask what was going on.  The agent told me that they did not sell a kit and that I would have to contact the third party, Guthy Renker.  But when I called initially, I didn't call Guthy Renker, I called IT Cosmetics on the website.  I called Guthy Renker, and the agent told me that they had received the kit, and the account was credited $59.95 (or whatever it was).  I asked her about the past due bill for $79.90.  She said that there was nothing due, which was confusing.  She eventually reassured me that the account was settled in full, and that we could ignore the bill.  It ends up that the past due bill was generated on the same day that they had received the kit...coincidental?  I'm guessing many unsuspecting seniors just pay the bill and never question it.  But I still don't understand why the bill was $79.90 for a $59.95 kit.  

Anyway, the bottom line—beware of this company's marketinig and advertising practices.  They are preying on unsuspecting customers who are paying far too much for cosmetics in order to lock them into lucrative autoship programs that don't make sense.  I found the lipstick my mom wanted on Amazon for $25 (she just wanted that and the blush which was $24 at ULTA), it will last her a year or more, and it's far less expensive than $59.95 every three months.