The Juggle Zone: Bargain Blog

Me:
I signed up to check it out, since it was free. The first thing that annoyed me was the misleading advertisement at FatWallet where I signed up from. I was under the impression that the points I was given (5) would allow me to order some music and/or movies, but after signing up found out that I first had to list stuff. Since I had nothing to list, I didn't pursue anything, because the confirmation email indicated that without listing items my registration wouldn't be complete. Next thing I know, I get charged a monthly fee, even though I never completed the registration requirements. Bottom line, I'm not very happy to have been charged, I would like to have the charge refunded, and I will NOT be using barterbee. I had thought of recommending it to friends who do have music/movies to trade, but at this point I don't feel comfortable doing that.

Bob:
I'm sorry you weren't happy with your BarterBee.com membership, but the terms of the membership, listing 5 items in order to request an item, is all over the promotion offer pages in addition to being listed twice in bold on the first two pages of the registration forms.

TEXT FROM REGISTRATION FORM
---------------------------------

You are registering as a member of BarterBee.com under our special '30 Days Free Special' promotion. This is a limited-time offer. If you keep your membership more than 30 days, you will automatically be billed the $2.95 monthly membership fee. In order to activate your account, you will be required to list 5 discs before you may request a disc from another member.

Your membership is month to month and may be canceled at any time. If you cancel your membership during the first 30 days then you must send back the unused envelopes sent to you. If we do not receive back the envelopes within 30 days of cancellation, your credit card will be charged $5.00 for the envelopes."

In addition you were sent an email you had to respond to in order to confirm your membership. Even by doing nothing, we would have canceled your membership and not charged your credit card. Since you were on the 30 day special, you had 30 days to cancel your membership with out us charging your credit card. You waited over a month to say you were not satisfied and that you didn't understand what you signed up for.

TEXT FROM CONFIRMATION EMAIL MESSAGE
---------------------------------

Simply click on the link below for your new membership to take effect. Once you do, the wonderful world of BarterBee.com awaits.
Get started today!

CONFIRMATION LINK

If you do not confirm your membership within 48 hours, your account may be deleted.

After you confirm your membership and list 5 or more of your CDs, you will be able to start taking advantage of your membership to request CDs from others.

As soon as you list your CDs we will promptly mail you your BarterBee.com envelopes.

Your credit card has NOT been charged and will not be charged until you finish this final confirmation step. After confirmation your credit card will be charged the initial membership startup fee of $0.00. When you receive your credit card statement, you will see the charge of $0.00 listed for the merchant BarterBee.com.

David, please let us know how we could have made this clearer for you.

If you will return the envelopes/sleeves that we have sent you, we will credit
your card with $2.95 minus the postage/envelope of $1.50 to mail them to you.
Please mail the envelopes/sleeves back to:
BarterBee.com
16795 Lark Ave.
Suite 210
Los Gatos, CA 95032

Regards,

Bob
Customer Service, BarterBee.com

Me:
Needless to say, I am very dissatisfied with your response. I didn't cancel earlier because I hadn't completed the activation of my account. As you stated yourself, "In order to activate your account, you will be required to list 5 discs." Even if you ignore that fact, I was signed up for a 30 day trial, and as stated in your company's email, the barterbee site was down for several days. Subtract those days from my trial time, and I did cancel within 30 days. If you ignore both of those facts, then your claim is that I was signed up for more than 30
days, and therefore the requirement to return the unused envelopes does not apply. As stated on the sign-up page, "If you cancel your membership during the first 30 days then you must send back the unused envelopes sent to you. If we do not receive back the envelopes within 30 days of cancellation, your credit card will be charged $5.00 for the envelopes." You can't have your cake and eat it, too. While I don't except any charge from Barterbee, there is no way you are entitled to both charges.

USPS regulations prohibit billing for items sent without authorization. I never requested that they be sent. But even after they were, I was informed that I would be "billed in the amount of $0.00" for them.

Bob:
I am sorry to see that there is so much confusion with this situation. Bottom line is that if you canceled before the 30 days were up, you would be required to return the envelopes and your account would not be charged the $5.00 for envelopes as stated in the membership terms.

.... If we do not receive back the envelopes within 30 days of cancellation, your credit card will be charged $5.00 for the envelopes.

If you would like to send back the envelopes within the 30 days, then I
will be happy to have your card credited with the $2.95 without charging
you for the original postage to mail them in the first place.

Bob
Customer Service, BarterBee.com

Me:
If barterbee pays the postage, I'll send them back. Otherwise, no go. I have no plans to pay any money for a "FREE" trial which I never even activated!

Bob:
We are trying to accommodate you, but you did agree to the terms and conditions, you did confirm that you wanted to join by clicking on the link in the confirmation email, you did receive the envelopes, and you didn't cancel within 30 days. Even if you did cancel within 30 days, you would have had to mail back the envelopes back which is stated clearly on the form you filled out. All the above is clearly stated on the site and the email we sent you.

Your account has been charged with $2.95, but we will credited you back this amount if you return the envelopes.

Bob
Customer Service, BarterBee.com

My FW Post:
hoola said:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{snip}
nothing to loose i guess.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I thought so, too, until I was charged for a second month. (I never cancelled because I never completed my registration.) Then they threatened to charge me for the "FREE" envelopes they sent me. Needless to say, I'm not a happy camper.

TheQueenBee's Response (Bob):
Hello David,

As we covered in our email exchange, we're sorry you weren't happy with your BarterBee.com membership, but the terms of the membership, listing 5 items in order to request an item, is all over the promotion offer pages in addition to being listed twice in bold on the first two pages of the registration forms.

In addition you were sent an email you had to respond to in order to confirm your membership. Even by doing nothing, we would have canceled your membership and not charged your credit card. Since you were on the 30 day special, you had 30 days to cancel your membership with out us charging your credit card. You waited over a month to say you were not satisfied and that you didn't understand what you signed up for.

Kind Regards,
QueenBee

My FW Response:
Your ad (above) also states "Best of all, FatWallet.com negotiated for you to start with enough points to get up to 5 CD’s right away!" I don't know how you define right away, but to me, "right away" doesn't mean "after you list 5 items."

And it's also convenient how you decided to send me envelopes, even though I never completed that last, ever so important step, of actually listing anything! (As your confirmation email stated, "After you confirm your membership and list 5 or more of your CDs, you will be able to start taking advantage of your membership to request CDs from others. As soon as you list your CDs we will promptly mail you your BarterBee.com envelopes." [emphasis mine])

Me (to FW Mods):
I just wanted to let you know about a problem I am having with this advertiser. After seeing the ad, and the FW endorsement, I decided to take a look. It looked interesting enough that I even started to sign-up, and that is when things went downhill. After submitting my information, I found out that despite the ad's claim that "Best of all, FatWallet.com negotiated for you to start with enough points to get up to 5 CD’s right away!," in fact, one had to list 5 items before being able to get any. Realizing that I didn't have anything to trade, I decided not to complete the final step of membership, listing stuff.

A few days later they sent me 5 mailing envelopes, despite the fact that their earlier email stated "As soon as you list your CDs we will promptly mail you your BarterBee.com envelopes." (and I had not listed any CDs).

31 days later I notice a charge from Barterbee on my credit card statement online. I contact them about it, and have been in email discussions with them ever since. They want to either return the envelopes that I never requested or charge me $5.00(!) for them.

As of the latest round of negotiations (3 or 4 emails back and forth later), they are finally willing to refund the monthly fee they charged me, but only if I pay to return the envelopes which they never should have sent to me in the first place.

The bottom line is this. I wanted to let you know that the praise you bestowed on them isn't necessarily deserved. If you feel that it is your place to intervene on my behalf, I'd appreciate it, but if I need to deal with this myself (and/or with my credit card company), I will understand.

Thanks,
-David

FW Mod Responds:
Hi David,

We are sorry to hear of the trouble that you have experienced with this Advertiser. I am contacting our BarterBee representative to see what we can do to help get this resolved.

Thank you for letting us know, and for being a valuable part of the FatWallet Community.

I'll send you a PM when we have more information. You can also reach me directly at ******@fatwallet.com.

Sincerely,
******
FatWallet Affiliate Team
Advertising Coordinator
******@fatwallet.com

FW Mod Responds:
Hi David,

We’ve been doing some research into the issues you’ve had with our recent advertiser, BarterBee. It is unfortunate that such a small amount of money has blossomed into such a large customer service issue. We will be processing a credit to your Cash Back account in the amount of $7.95 (the $2.95 membership fee that was charged, and the potential $5.00 charge for the return envelopes). We’d also like to offer you some FatWallet Schwag as a way to show our appreciation for your valued participation in the FatWallet Community. We have a new shipment of Hats and Mugs – and we’d like to send you one of each. Could you please reply with your mailing address?

Thank you for bringing these issues to our attention. We will be updating the advertising threads to clarify with what we've learned from your experience.

Sincerely,
****** ******
FatWallet Advertising Coordinator
******@fatwallet.com

Me:
I really appreciate FW going to bat for me on this one. I agree that it is a shame that such a small amount of money became such a problem. I'm proud to be a member of such a warm community.

The schwag sounds great!

Please ship it to the following address:

David Wallach
###############
#######, NY #####

FW Mod Responds:
Hi David,

No problem. We are happy to help.

Have a nice weekend,
******

Me, concerned when after several days pass, no FatCash credit shows up:
You previously stated that "We will be processing a credit to your Cash Back account in the amount of $7.95 (the $2.95 membership fee that was charged, and the potential $5.00 charge for the return envelopes)." While I recognize you used the future tense, I figured it would have happened by now. Am I being too impatient or did something go wrong?

-David

FW Mod responds (next day):
Hi David,

The amount has been added to your Cash Back account with a date of 6/8 so that you can cash it out immediately.

:)

Sincerely,
******

Being polite, I respond:
Many thanks!
-David

Me (to FW's Tim):
I sent an "Alert Moderators" message about this issue, but wanted to let you know directly about a problem I am having with a FW advertiser. It is in regards to the BarterBee ad1 and ad2 - I'm not sure why there were 2 posts). Here is the message I sent to the Mods:

I just wanted to let you know about a problem I am having with this advertiser. After seeing the ad, and the FW endorsement, I decided to take a look. It looked interesting enough that I even started to sign-up, and that is when things went downhill. After submitting my information, I found out that despite the ad's claim that "Best of all, FatWallet.com negotiated for you to start with enough points to get up to 5 CD’s right away!," in fact, one had to list 5 items before being able to get any. Realizing that I didn't have anything to trade, I decided not to complete the final step of membership, listing stuff.

A few days later they sent me 5 mailing envelopes, despite the fact that their earlier email stated "As soon as you list your CDs we will promptly mail you your BarterBee.com envelopes." (and I had not listed any CDs).

31 days later I notice a charge from Barterbee on my credit card statement online. I contact them about it, and have been in email discussions with them ever since. They want to either return the envelopes that I never requested or charge me $5.00(!) for them.

As of the latest round of negotiations (3 or 4 emails back and forth later), they are finally willing to refund the monthly fee they charged me, but only if I pay to return the envelopes which they never should have sent to me in the first place.

The bottom line is this. I wanted to let you know that the praise you bestowed on them isn't necessarily deserved. If you feel that it is your place to intervene on my behalf, I'd appreciate it, but if I need to deal with this myself (and/or with my credit card company), I will understand.

Thanks,
-David

Tim Responds:
Wow! That sounds pretty incredible...

I will forward your message over to the person that handles that account... I am quite certain it will be handled shortly.

Tim

Me:
A FW Staff member named ****** has contacted me already, and is looking into the matter.

Thanks for your concern,
-David

Tim:
****** is keeping me in the loop as well... sounds like we'll be able to get you taken care of as well as clarify the situation for other users.

Me:
Great! It's unfortunate that this situation came about, but I'm glad it will be resolved for myself (and others).