Sarah
Lake Worth,#2UPDATE Employee
Mon, November 03, 2008
Using the information provided on RipOffReport by Josh, we located his account with iFriends. A short time after Josh wrote the above complaint, he contacted our Customer Care Department. He requested that his account be closed and requested that the charges be refunded. A Customer Care Representative closed the account, refunded all charges that had been billed, and provided Josh with a cancellation number. If Josh has any further questions or concerns, we strongly encourage him to contact our Customer Care Department, which is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and can be reached by calling 1-800-243-9726 (a toll-free call from the US). The $1 that Josh mentions in the complaint is in fact a credit card authentication fee which is billed to every customer who creates an account, and which is necessary to process in order to help prevent instances of identity theft and to comply with the federal Child Online Protection Act. This fee is prominently disclosed in advance, and Josh affirmatively acknowledged and accepted the charge when he created his iFriends account. The $1 charge is effectively refunded to customers by being automatically applied towards any purchase of premium services on the iFriends service. If the customer does not purchase services of $1 or more, the fee is fully refunded upon request by the customer at any time. This policy is clearly stated on the registration form that Josh completed. When Josh created his account, he chose to enroll in an upgraded iFriends VIP membership. Regular iFriends membership is free, but the VIP membership that Josh chose to access has a monthly charge associated with it. This charge was clearly and conspicuously disclosed in advance, and Josh actively chose to create his account with the VIP membership. Whenever we send a charge to a credit card, we also include a toll-free telephone number, specific to the user's country, that he or she can use to contact us if there are any questions about the charge or about the account. We also provide a link to email and telephone contact information on every page of our website. Again, if Josh has any questions, we encourage him to contact us directly. Our company has an exemplary 11-year-record with all of the leading consumer protection agencies, and we are "best in class" in our industry in the development of model online consumer best practices. Every one of our web services is verified by TRUSTe to be on its sealholder list of the most trustworthy online businesses.