Complaint Rating:

Company information:
Intelius Inc
Florida
United States

Back at the end of May I had gone to Intelius.com to use their services to search for a family member. I paid around $3-$5 for the information that I was looking for and wasn't really impressed with the results. Anyways, come the middle of June my husband and I log onto our bank account and see that $40 was taken out of our account by two separate business; one of them being ValueMax and the other being a identity theft protection program. After doing some research we discovered that these two businesses were in fact sub-businesses of Intelius, and that upon paying for my information I apparently agreed to become a member for their services and had a 7 day free trial, neither of which I knew of. I first called ValueMax, and I assume that they receive tons of complaints regarding this issue since I had no problem receiving my refund. However, when I called Intelius (and waited nearly 45 minutes to speak with someone) to dispute the charges regarding their identity theft protection program, I was told that I would not be receiving a refund because I did not cancel my subscription within the 7 day trial period. I asked them "How is it possible for me to cancel a subscription that I apparently signed up to be a part of when I had no idea that I was signing up for it? And if I were a so called member then why did I not receive an email notifying me that my free trial period was ending?" (of course they're not going to send you an email warning you that your trial period was ending, because that's how they scam you and steal your money!) After going in circles with their droid-like representative, I stated that I was going to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau AND write to their complaints department regarding how they handle customer service (okay, I bluffed, but still!). So, right after I got off the phone with Intelius I went straight to the BBB website and wrote a very lengthy complaint with strong supporting facts about why they should refund me my $20 and how they are running an unethical business and building their company on stealing people's money. Well, within 24 hours I received a notice from Intelius stating that I would receive my $20 within 2-3 business days, and then the next day I logged onto my bank account and what do you know, I got my $20 back :) So basically, if you want your money back file a complaint with the BBB and threaten to dispute the charge even further. They would rather lose $20 than waste more money and time on fighting your dispute, so it's worth making a big stink about it and sticking it to the man ;)