deceptive sales tactics
Complaint
Jocelyne Houghton
Country: United States
This complaint is regarding Guthy-Renker,which is the parent company of both ProActiv Solutions & VitaPower supplements. I was a satisfied customer of ProActiv Solutions (acne cleansing system) for years, beginning in the mid-90s (before they used celebrity endorsements). My mother got the account for me & I used the product for many years; we terminated the account only due to accumulating a stockpile of the product. Cut to this summer, when I opened an account with ProActiv for myself. There was an "Introductory Offer" of the VitaPower vitamins for $3.99, and I accepted it. There was no information about how much the product was after the "introductory offer." When I received the product, it came with absolutely no paperwork - no receipt, no product information, no contact information, no way to accept or decline an actual subscription to the product. Due to this lack of information, it was unclear that VitaPower was a separate entity from ProActiv. The fact that there was no product information, receipt or any other paperwork gave me pause, and I did not want to continue with the product (I didn't try it; I just didn't see fit to add more vitamins to my regimen). I should have taken steps to contact the company, but there wasn't any contact info provided with the product, and I promptly forgot about it ... until a month later when $33.99 was taken out of my account by the VitaPower company. I did then contact ProActiv for VitaPower's customer service number and promptly called to cancel my unwanted and unsolicited subscription, only to get a very sarcastic attitude from the agent when I declined to listen to his lecture about cancelling without trying the product, and trying to keep me from cancelling the account. I called back again to clarify about the lack of information about the product & subcription status with the shipment of the product & how it was a suspicious & deceptive tactic, to no avail. I then expressed my displeasure re: the experience with VitaPower and the (lack of)information given when signing up for the "introductory offer" with ProActiv, whereupon I learned that VitaPower is part of the Guthy-Renker "Family" (umbrella company) and, in short, did not care about my negative experience. I have subsequently cancelled my account with ProActiv. It's shocking to me that they would be so unconcerned with complaints regarding these dodgy & cheap sales tactics, given that they actually have competition these days. Boo!
Comments
It is common for businesses selling "nutritional", "diet", or other "health" supplements to engage in "trial offer" scams that include placing fraudulent charges they claim you agreed to. They may even have hid the alleged terms somewhere on their website, to substantiate some alleged "agreement", but for some reason those stupid consumers just don't seem to find it... "What's your problem? We conned you fair and square!"
The number of complaints indicates customers were never intended to find it. You were never intended to "cancel" an "agreement" you weren't supposed to be aware you had made. If it were truly some "misunderstanding", they would long ago have clarified the terms of their offer, and the misunderstandings would have ceased. The "trial offer" is little different than a phishing scam for your bank account information, under the pretense of an order for merchandise, but the result as you found is little different.
See, for example, other reports on this site under "Health & Beauty". BBB has reports on a number of them.
File complaints with FTC, your state AG, the AG from the state in which they are located, and BBB.
http://tinyurl.com/d2u7ef
When brought to the attention of Proactive, they said they have no control over their customers and if they want to scam potential customers using Proactiv's promotions as their tool, that wasn’t their problem.
I asked Proactiv to at least go to Ebay and type in Proactiv Coupons and review the auction to determine if they were in violation of the Refer A Friend promotion. Again, they made it clear they didn’t care how they got the new customers, and if someone was stupid enough to pay for a free promotion then Proactive and the customer selling the promotion are ahead.
I was then told if I didn’t like Proactiv’s resolution to take it to the next level – Guthy-Renker – and the call was ended.
I sent the bottle back RECORDED delivery, that was June 1st 2009, they were signed for on June 5th 2009, When I called Customer Service to chase up my refund they were adamant that they still had not recieved the package, EVEN THOUGH THERE WAS PROOF ON CANADA POST'S WEBSITE !
I have spent thew last week emailing them to chase this up and keep being told it takes 6 weeks to get your money back, has anyone else had this problem ?
If so what did you do and how did it turn out ?
I have writen to Guthy Renker (Sheer cover) customer care by email and have been promised a responce within the next two days so I will keep my fingers crossed and hope they would do the right thing for a change!!
I decided I would try it again because my skin needs some help, and the product is a good product. What I dislike is how they take money whenever they decide too. When I order the intro Proactive, they talked me into trying the vitamins for a small price. Well, you guessed it. Shortly, they took money out of my acct. for the Proactive I didn't order. I called they put the money back and canceled my acct. or so I thought. A month later, money was taken out for the vitamins that I didn't order. I emailed them and they advised me my acct was closed. After 5 emails requesting my acct closed again, which they sent emails back telling me it was closed, I decided to call them. Finally, after all of this time I was told that I had to call another number to cance the vitamins. I called, the lady was very nice and told me I would have a refund in 24-36 hrs. We'll see!
Never again will I order from this company and wouldn't advise anyone else to do so.
Thank you