www.pinkvisual.com review: Credit Card Fraud 1

When the ipad came out, I heard about this company on tech news sites, and immediately signed up for a $39.95 3 month recurring membership, figuring it's the only productive use for the ipad.

I did look at the porn site a couple of times, but it was slow (probably because of all the other people who had just signed up after seeing it on the news), and the movies were way too tame for me. Boring.

I cancelled the membership before the 3 month period, but they kept billing me $9.95 anyway.

Turns out that when you sign up, there is a small box checked saying that you get a one day trial, and that it's $9.95 a month after that. That doesn't jive with the $39.95 three month recurring billing that I signed up for, at all.

As a matter of fact, there's no way to know where the $1 charge and the $9.95 recurring charges are coming from, or how to cancel them, ever. Cancelling the $39.95 subscription doesn't stop the $9.95 charge.

When I saw the checkbox and blurb when I signed up, from the vague wording I probably just figured I was getting a 1 day trial for the service. Even though they did sign me up and charge me for this "service, " there was actually no way to know what it was or how to use it. It's just a $9.95 charge per month into the pockets of the nice people at Pink Visual, forever (until your credit card no longer works?).

This is the only information I received after signing up:

> > Welcome to Pink Visual Pad
> > As a full member, you get access to all streaming video on this site
> > and across our network, plus access to available downloads. As a
> > loyalty bonus, the longer you remain a member of our site, the more
> > download access you'll receive.
> >
> >
> > Log In Information (CaSe SeNsItIvE)
> >
> > Username:
> > Password:
> > Memberid:
> > Members area: members.pinkvisualpad.com
> >
> > Customer Service: members.pinkvisualpad.com/support.html
> >
> >
> > For more information about our sites and Pink Visual products,
> > please visit www.PinkVisual.com
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Your Customer Service Team
> > [1187]

When I saw the charges in my checking account, I looked up CLIENTS-SUPPORT.COM. Google seemed to indicate they were part of Pink Visual. I sent this message to them to cancel the account:

>I canceled this account on 5/28/10, at 8:54PM.
>
>I received these two charges to my credit card, one which was after
>I had canceled, and the other for 28 cents for no reason at all.
>
>6/7/2010 Pos DB-POS-CLIENTS-SUPPORT.COM $9.95
>
>5/6/2010 Debit DB-CLIENTS SUPPORT COM $.28
>
>Please refund these charges immediately.

The 28 cents was obviously to see if they still had a live one hooked. This was the response I got back:

>Dear Sir,
>
>When signing up for a membership to
>ipinkvisualpad.com you were offered discount
>memberships to our other mobile sites and websites, they bill at $9.95 a
>month after 1 day. (This information is posted on the join page) I've
>cancelled this account and requested a full refund from your billing
>processor Netbilling. If you have questions regarding the status of your
>refund please contact Netbilling directly. I've included Netbilling's
>contact information below. Please let me know if you need further assistance.
>
>Netbilling
>
> Web: http://net-member.com/
>Cancellations:
>https://secure.memberjoins.com/netbilling/cancel.php
>Email: [protected]@net-member.com
>Phone: [protected]
>
>Best regards,
>Customer Support

It turns out you can cancel this "service" if you're a geek and can figure out where it's coming from. If not, you're out $10 a month.

By the way, on the Pink Visual web site, they make a fraudulent statement about your charging back your credit card, and they don't list CLIENTS-SUPPORT.COM as their credit card processor :

------------------------
• Q: What company will I be billed by?

A: Your credit card will be discreetly billed by Epoch.com/EPOCHEU.COM, CCBill, or Net-member. If you paid by check you will be billed by WTS, If you have paid by Web 900 you will be billed by CCBill.

• Q: I would like to chargeback my membership

A: Charge Backs And Fraud From Our Members
A billing chargeback will place your name, address, zip code, and credit card number into an Internet fraud database. All internet credit card companies use this database. We do not have any control over this fraud database.

If you chargeback your membership, the billing company will add your information to the ban database. If you get into this database you will not be able to use that billing company again. It is impossible to get off the ban lists. Be smart! Don't destroy your internet credit by being added to this list and investigated for fraud!

• Q: I'm seeing additional charges on my credit card?

A: The site you purchased has a $1 - 1 day trial. After 24 hours you will be automatically billed the recurring rate of $24.95. In addition, when joining, you may have been offered discount memberships to our other mobile sites and websites, they bill at XYZ amount after X # of days. If you chose those discount offers, you must cancel those separately. Please contact us or go through the automated process to cancel those memberships.

-------------------------------------------

While they may keep their own database of chargebacks, there is no way that "all internet credit card companies use this database."

The terms and conditions don't really address that they are going to steal $10 a month from you forever:

https://secure.memberjoins.com/netbilling/terms.php

They got a ton of press when the ipad came out. They are probably ripping off plenty of ipad owners right now.

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