- Report: #882391
Complaint Review: Hotbooksale.com - Internet
Reported By:
Lee -
Roebling, New Jersey, United States of America
Submitted:
Updated:
-
Author Not Confirmed
Why?
Hotbooksale.com
Internet, United States of America
Phone:
Web:
www.hotbooksale.com
Categories:
Business Rating:
(0)
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good?
Hotbooksale.com Bestbrandvalues.com Deceptive "membership" activation, Internet
In June 2009, I purchased a book from hotbooksale.com. Since I do purchase books pretty often, it took me way too long to figure out that they had opened an automated billing membership with bestbrandvalues.com. I never received any communication from them after that purchase - nothing to give me a clue that my credit card was being billed $19.95 on a monthly basis. And since I do purchase books regularly, it didn't register until April of this year. This company has billed me for 3 years for a membership they sneaked into the sale of one book.
When I finally saw a charge that I knew I had not made, I immediately looked for a phone number or email address for "hotbooksale.com" and could not find any contact information. I filed a dispute with my credit card company and finally got them to stop billing me. While it is true that I should have seen this fraud sooner; I believe they are extremely culpable for never notifying me that I was being billed or contacting me in any way to ask if I wanted this "membership". It was one VERY costly book!
When I finally saw a charge that I knew I had not made, I immediately looked for a phone number or email address for "hotbooksale.com" and could not find any contact information. I filed a dispute with my credit card company and finally got them to stop billing me. While it is true that I should have seen this fraud sooner; I believe they are extremely culpable for never notifying me that I was being billed or contacting me in any way to ask if I wanted this "membership". It was one VERY costly book!
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Sr2Brnr
Roebling,New Jersey,
United States of America
Sliding Around the Truth
#2Author of original report
Mon, May 21, 2012
1. Any legitimate company that offers such bargains sends notices to the consumer about those bargains. After "voluntarily" signing up. (Who actually reads all of those convoluted "agreements" anyway?), I received absolutely NO communication from this company to alert me that I had inadvertently signed up to be billed $19.99 per month for their "services".
2. They do not make themselves easy to contact and deal with once you discover you are being billed. I looked at my credit card statements in vain to discover why they were billing me and how to contact them.
Saying that you have certain business practices doesn't make it the truth. The truth is, Hotbooksale and bestbrands practice a very sneaky kind of fraud, pure and simple.
BBV Support Team
Boca Raton,Florida,
United States of America
HotBookSale membership
#3UPDATE Employee
Mon, May 21, 2012
Hello, I'm Jack from the HotBookSale Support team.
We take all comments about our products and services very seriously.
Please note that our membership program is optional and there is no obligation to join in order to purchase any of the products we offer. Also, there is no automatic sign up during your shopping experience with us. In order to become a member, you must first agree to the terms and conditions of our offer, which are clearly shown to you before you make a purchase.
Additionally, having a membership entitles you to exclusive money-saving benefits such as Free Shipping on your first order, $5 off the first in-stock item you order as a new member, up to 30% off regular product prices each time you shop, extra discounts every month and much more. Plus, you have access to DVDs, books, music, video games, posters, vitamins and more, all at deeply discounted prices. Also, you are free to cancel your membership at anytime, at no cost to you.
Your satisfaction is very important to us and we strive to offer products and services that our customers value. We ask that you contact our Support Team either by telephone or by submitting a support ticket so that we can help resolve any issue you may have with our products or services.
To contact us, please visit http://www.HotBookSale.com/support/
We also invite you to see what other customers are saying about our services, please visit our Testimonials page at: http://www.HotBookSale.com/store/testimonials.aspx
Sincerely,
HotBookSale.com
