Don’t fall into the free trial booby trap
Companies and credit card issuers will tell you that you should have read the fine print
Did you hear Marilyn Denis was leaving CTV and CHUM 104.5 to run a skincare business?
These reports spread across the internet earlier this year.
Denis put out a statement this past August denying the rumours as fans shared their relief on Twitter.
“I’ve seen this twice today on my Facebook feed,” one tweeted.
“The ad with your leaving was even on the Yahoo! Canada news page. Bizarre,” said another.
“Just shows they know people love this show and Marilyn enough to click on the link to find out more about this story,” said a third.
I also read online that Tracy Moore, host of a rival morning talk show on City TV, was quitting her job to devote herself to beauty products.
“Fake news alert,” Moore retorted on Facebook. “It’s all lies. The internet is a brutal place and theft of image is rampant.”
Celebrities are a powerful marketing draw, and companies continue to exploit our fascination with fame: what’s going on in the private lives of TV stars? How do they manage to look so young and defy aging after so many years on the air?
If you click a link to find out why Denis and Moore are quitting show business, you may be lured into a mail order scam that will cost you a few hundred dollars before you escape.
I’ve written about this free trial scam — also known as a subscription trap — many times in recent years.
The people who lose money to it tend to be older and have little experience with electronic commerce.
You see an offer to try out free skincare products. You have to pay a small shipping fee (under $5) and give your credit card information online. But it’s actually a 14-day free trial. And if you don’t return the samples promptly, you’re locked into an automatic monthly subscription that lasts
until you track down the company and cancel your order. As for refunds, good luck. The companies and the credit card issuers insist it’s your fault for not reading the terms and conditions — usually hidden from view at a different website you never visit.
Helen Smolkin, a retired teacher, fell for the sales pitch. She’s a fan of Marilyn Denis and wanted to try her skin-care products.
By mid October, she felt desperate. She didn’t even know how to contact the two companies that had charged her credit card about $400.
“I called my credit card company, but it will not reverse the charges,” she said. “The agent told me I had to contact the company and cancel my subscription, which I never signed up for. I also had to return the product, but there is only a P.O. Box number on the package.”
Later, she checked her emails, found a phone number and spoke to a company representative.
“The agent raised her voice and told me that I agreed to the subscription when I ordered the samples,” she said about the conversation.
“I remained calm and asked her not to yell. Told her I am the one who should be yelling. She started reading their policy quickly and said they will not refund the two big charges but she will cancel my subscription, and hung up on me.”
Smolkin did get a refund from President’s Choice Financial MasterCard when I asked Loblaws spokesperson Catherine Thomas to help. It took only one day to accomplish.
Another version of the scam involves a request that pops up when you’re at the website of a company you know and trust, such as Costco, Amazon, a large bank or telecom provider. You are promised a reward for filling out a short survey that takes only a few minutes.
Again, you are asked to provide a credit card number to cover a small shipping fee. You may not realize that a company can add other much larger charges once it has this information.
In a 2016 column, I spoke to a senior fraud specialist at the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. He said these offers usually contain a tiny “Terms and Conditions” button, which if found and opened, may reveal all that the consumer is actually “agreeing” to.
I recently heard from a reader about an order of so-called free samples that ended up costing more than $800 in credit card charges. I’ve asked the credit card issuer (CIBC) to reverse them.
“My wife is 85, on a limited pension and can ill afford this costly mistake,” he said. “Please advise people to read the fine print in the Terms and Conditions, and when dealing with companies outside Canada, research them first — an easy task.”
Bottom line: celebrity endorsements are easy to fake. So are pop-up surveys purporting to come from a reputable company.
When it comes to subscription traps, promises of “free” can actually end up costing you big time.