In April I bought a book for a book club from DiscountBookSale.com (it was Shannon Hales "Book of a Thousand Days," which is wonderful). It was an awesome deal. I even got "Goose Girl" as a bonus for like 50 cents. Having found similarly awesome deals on Amazon, I was not suspicious.
Now, 6 months later, in reviewing my list of debit charges, I notice one from Discount Book Sale. Mike was there, so I asked him if he ordered something. Nope. So I look them up online and find that by buying my books at "member price" in April, I was automatically signing up for a 20$/month membership.
To be fair, I should have noticed these charges earlier. I assumed Mike was buying stuff online- I didn't notice that the charges were for the same amount, at the same time each month. That's totally my bad. I've called, and they gave me a refund for the last 3 months, which is more than I was expecting, given what I'd read online. I hung up with them and called Visa to see if they could get the first 3 months back. Turns out, Visa can only dispute charges up to 3 months old. So was it coincidence that that's how much I was refunded by the scammers? I submit that it was not. I read some more online- people always got the same amount refunded as they would have been able to recover through their credit card companies.
The real message here: Don't be as inattentive as me. And don't buy from Discount Book Sale. I'm definitely sticking to Amazon from now on. They've never even scammed me a little bit. The message for me: pay attention!
(On the lighter side: my little paperback books I got from there, which I totally thought were some awesome deals, are now, taking into account my "membership fees" about 30$ a piece. That's after I get my refund, which you can be sure I'm watching for.)
1 comment:
I am surprised they are still operating such a scam. I did get my refund by the way!
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