Beware of membership rip-offs with online stores
Beware of membership rip-offs with online discount stores is the message in the latest contribution sent in by Gordon Hesketh-Jones. He has passed on a note of one from one of his friends of their experience with an online discount store that requires users to sign up for "membership". As his friend says "this is just me passing on one of those life experiences that may save others from the same grief".

I bought a couple of things online for Christmas presents from a website called the Redsave Gadget Shop at www.redsave.com and saw the site claims to be the "Clever way to shop online"! It offered very competitive prices on electronic goods but you had to 'join' and get a free 'Redsave Pass' which was valid for 30 days. I assumed, as is common with other similar websites, that this 'membership' would lapse and I would never hear from them again.

However the catch is in the small print in the website user conditions, which as usual are many pages long. At about paragraph 15 (in fact paragraph 31!), it tells you that your bank details are to be kept on record and that, unless you actively go back and cancel your Pass, Redsave will charge you a 'membership fee' of £19.95 monthly! I only noticed this in March this year as we had used our family 'joint account' to pay for the presents and it was then that we got around to 'reconciling' the account. Needless to say, we had been charged the membership fee in both February and March - a total charge of some £40!

They very cleverly state on their FAQs webpage:

Do you have Terms and Conditions on the website?
Please click here to view our standard Terms and Conditions. By shopping on our website you agree to these terms and conditions. If you have any questions, queries or comments then please use the form below to contact us and one of customer services team will reply to you as soon as possible.

But the company is not contactable by telephone (another indicator of dubiousness) and their Customer Service Dept, which on the site assures a response within 3 hours and when you submit an email assures a response within 1 working day. In our case it took over 9 days to respond to me. To be fair, it is probably because they have got so many similar complainants but I could be wrong. Subsequently the assurance of a response within 3 hours has been amended to one business day!

The bottom line is always check your bank accounts regularly and make sure you are not paying out money for nothing. Because I didn't start the Direct Debit, I can't stop it and because I didn't know I had to actively cancel my membership, I paid out £40 for nothing. My neighbours, who were pleased with what we got, did the same and I have just discovered they have lost out too. They also recommended this website to others, so you can see how much money Redsave is making for doing nothing. I have now cancelled my pass and should not pay out any more, they tell me. I am watching the account like a hawk!

I hope you have not been caught like me. What was a reasonably priced present has become very expensive indeed. One learns - so I hope this caution will help fellow members. (7.4.08)


Extract from user conditions
31. By becoming the holder of a Redsave Pass, You grant Us authority to debit the credit card or bank account which You used to make payment for Your goods with the Monthly Subscription Fee (defined in section 32 below) each month (‘the Monthly Billing Period’). By subscribing to the Redsave Pass You are entering into a continuous authorised billing agreement with Us. We reserve the right to include any other charges that You may incur in connection with Your use of the Website and the supply of goods to You within the Redsave Pass scheme within this continuous authorised billing agreement.

FAQs webpage on how you can contact Redsave - but not by telephone!


The text in the panel above from their FAQs webpage is:

Redsave wants to assist with your ordering issues as efficiently as possible. Therefore please contact our Customer Service Managers through one of the three new contact options below.

From January 2008 RedSave.com is running a new email ticket based system in line with other leading online e-commerce retailers and we believe our comprehensive email reply will be more personal and specific to your enquiry

However, it may also be appropriate for us to call you direct, so please be certain to include your order numbers and telephone contact numbers on all of your correspondance

During normal office hours of : Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.30pm, we will reply to your message within 1 business day.

(The three contact options are email, fax and post but not telephone although they say "please be certain to include your telephone number!)

Avoid continuous authorised billing agreements and associated continuing authorities for direct debits. They can be very difficult to stop.