Complaint Review: Kitchen Advance

On about Jan10th, I responded to an Internet ad for free sausage recipes by completing a form giving my name address and a cc to pay for the shipping & handling. When I then clicked on the "submit" button I was confronted with a succession of pages each with an additional offer for a variety of books and merchandise for (as I remember) $1.00. There was a button on each to decline the offer which I did. After about the 4th or 5th of these I got disgusted and simply exited the web site. On Jan 15, I received a 200+ page soft cover book, The Great Sausage Maker Cookbook by Kitchen Advance. Since this was considerably more material than I was expecting for "free", I became curious and did an Internet search for the company. This disc;ossed a number of web sites with myriad complaints about the company and a variety of "aka's" that it uses to charge for unorderd merchandise.

I checked my credit card activity and noted a charge of $3,95 had been made on Jan 10 by "RMC Gormet Cooking" I then called the number for Kitchen Advance to confirm the charge would be the only one that would be made against my card, and was informed that I had a commitment for a number of merchandise items that I had ordered, and I would be charged for them as well. When I said that I had not ordered anyhting other than the "free" sausage recipes, the woman advised me that the order form stated that I was agreeing to purchase the additional merchandise when I submitted the order for the cookbook. If such wording was on that form, it had to be so obsure as to be invisible. I told her that I had extited the web site before submitting my "order", but she informed me that as soon as the information is entered on the form,it is transmitted and the order is considered to have been submitted. Scam and fraud.