Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer complaint

Dear Learning Strategies co.,
I recently ordered the photoreading personal home study course a few months ago. I am not old enough to have my own credit card, so i asked my parents if i could order the product with their credit card....they reluctantly agreed. I have since recieved the photoreading system and congratulate your company on such a fine achievement!
I enjoy your products and eventually would like to order more of them.
However, recently my parents noticed an unexplained $99.99 dollar charge on their card, by a company named genesis.
We called the company, and found out that they had recieved our card number and name from learning strategies co.
they said they had sent us some package which we never got! Now my parents never want to order from your company again! I am saddened by this because i trusted this company. We have attempted to have them take the charge off our card, but it has been over a week and still nothing!
Please look over this matter!
Thanks.
Sincerely,
NeoByte

Dial their 1-800 number & speak to Dana Hanson or Pete personally. You need to get this cleared up immediately. Better yet, tell your parents to call. Please do this on Monday b/c their office is closed on the weekends.

I have never had such a thing happen to me & i've been using their products a number of yrs. Did you order it by phone or over the web?

I'm guessing you bought it over the phone after the infomercial, right?

They send you two "FREE" gifts, one from a company called Vacant Sun which has something to do with vacationing, and another from Genesis, which has something to do with insurance. Both are free for 30 days, but if you don't cancel before then, Genesis charges 99.00 to your account (not sure what Vacant Sun charges).

I cancelled my genesis offer today, before the 30-day deadline. I haven't received anything from Vacant Sun yet, but I hope I do soon, so I can cancel that.

I wasn't too happy that learning strategies did that either, but to be honest, the guy over the phone did tell me they were going to do that, so I expected the packages and cancelled the Genesis offer immediately upon receiving it. You probably *did* get it, but it comes in an envelope that looks completely trivial, and I wouldn't be surprised if your family threw it away thinking it was some kind of advertisement. It's not a package, it's really just a plain envelope that looks like trash bin material.

The bad news is that if your genesis offer already charged your account, you're probably going to get a Vacant Sun charge sometime soon, too. The good news is that on the letter it said that there is a 6.95 dollar surcharge on cancelling the genesis offer after 30 days...whether or not the 99 dollars goes back to you I am unsure of. As soon as I get back home, I'll get the letter (just cancelled it today, so it should still be in the trash) and give you the number ASAP. Can't help you on the vacant sun thing though, but when or if that comes in, I'll give you that number too.

I actually expected a lot of people to fall for this...I kinda think it's crummy that it does. In Learning Strategies's defense, a lot of companies actually do this, only they sell your personal information to telemarketers and such. It's a major source of income for a lot of companies. This however, results in a direct charge to your credit card unless you take personal action, so that's not so hot, either.

Will get you the info as soon as I get home.

Fellow PR'er,
Ramon

razordu30:
What an amazing story. You know LS needs to be more sensitive to young kids buying their products. Younger & younger students are getting interested in PhRing. How can a 13-14 yr. old student be aware of all kinds of marketing techniques.

When young people buy products that have all the luggage you mentioned, their parents need to be made aware of what it entails.

Yeah, I agree Margaret. I think that at the very least, LS should have the operator say, "Would you like to try these offers?" to which the buyer can say "yay" or "nay". We're studying discretion right now in philosophy, and as things are right now, I can't honestly say that this is really *fair*.

NEOBYTE: the VacantSun letter came today...here is the info...
Genesis: "If you are not completely satisfied with the service simply call 1-888-908-9375 (Cancellations received after the 30 day trial will incur an administrative charge of $6.95)
VacantSun: "If you are not completely satisfied with the service simply call 1-888-244-8992(Cancellations received after the 30 day trial will incur an administrative charge of $6.95)

NeoByte, you can get ANYTHING taken off a credit card just by saying you didn't order it and by signing those "FRAUD" papers the credit card company will send you when you call to tell them about it. Even if they did tell you and you didn't understand them, the charges you can get them taken off. Sometimes even SAYING you don't want anything doesn't even stop them from giving you stuff you don't want. I'm not talking about LS, just in general.

I ordered some free computer disc (just had to pay shipping) online a year ago and they didn't send it to me till 4 months later, after I forgot about it and I then had my CC close to the limit so when they finally got around to charging my card it went over the limit and I was p*ssed because I forgot about the whole thing and I raised hell about it and got it off my card and it was something I DID order. I didn't remember I did until halfway thru the process. Then I felt bad but it was really their fault for taking months to process an order. Who's going to remember something as insignificant as that?

This same thing happened to me about 4 months ago. After listening to the infomercial, and ordering the PR course, I received two "packages." I called the companies involved (different ones than the ones mentioned above), found out that they got my credit card info from the people who answer the infomercial line (I don't think these are LS people, but LS does obviously hire them to field the infomercial calls).

I immediately called LS and told them to take care of this or my PR package was going to be returned the next day. They were apologetic, said that the phone answering people were not supposed to do things like this, and said they would take care of it. They did take care of it. They also offered me an "extended" review period for the PR course, but, as I found out later, it was not even as good as the 6 months they will give you if you just ask for it.

So, apparently this has been going on for many months, and LS has been aware of it for many months. Come on, LS people, I love your products, but this fraudulent behavior is unacceptable. It's not enough to say it isn't you doing it. Get rid of the people who continue to take advantage of your customers! And report to us that you have done it.

[This message has been edited by jstew (edited September 29, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by jstew (edited September 29, 2001).]

The distributor who sells our products on radio and television offers the memberships to most, if not all, callers. We have nothing to do with it, and we do not receive any commission or fee from it. By all means, call to have the charges reversed if you did not want to keep the membership. They have been very good about reversing the charges.

Dana,

I think the point here is that they are not "offering" these "memberships", they just enroll you without asking! That is what they did to me, and it sounds like they did this to NeoByte.

Please re-read my last post. You must set some ground rules for people who represent LS, and have established remedies if these rules are ignored. Even though they are a different company, they represent LS on the phone. LS should not be willing to put up with such deceit in it's name.

Any telephone operators who are caught slamming the memberships are instantly fired. American Media Partners has been very good about maintaining integrity on the sale. Now and then someone gets charged when they shouldn't. Most of these cases have been traced to computer error or a processing error. The number of problems is very small when compared to the tens of thousands of telephone calls.

Regarding the guarantee: if you call to have it extended after purchasing from radio or television you are talking to customer service at American Media Partners not at Learning Strategies Corporation. They offer 30-day extensions. We offer 6-month extensions on
product purchased directly from us.

[This message has been edited by Dana Hanson (edited October 03, 2001).]