Adultsights Verification - do they scam you?

[Guest Fin Fang Foom]

I wanted to look at some pictures on a site and they had Adultsights as being the one you have to buy into to see the pics. It's $19.95 a year with a one week trial memembership of something else and if you don't cancel that other thing within a week, they then start charging you $29.95/month. I have a feeling it's one of those things where they never get your cancellation "in time" and they've got you hooked at $29.95 a month.

 

Has anyone had any experience with this?

 

http://www.adultsights.com/signupform.cfm?site=st71102

[Guest BeercanThick]

I haven't had any experience with Adultsights so this is probably off the topic and I apologize but I am having the same problems with Live and Raw-Chi Chi LaRue.

I joined with a trial memebership for 3 days with the option to cancel if I didn't want to pay the 29.95. I cancelled, received a confirmation however, I still continue to be charged for it.

I have sent hundreds of emails to the site requesting help and none of them are answered.

It pisses me off because on the site itself, they brag about the speed at which they handle such requests.

If anyone has some help, I would appreciate it. Short of calling my local consumer reports guy and admitting that I watch live gay porn on the internet.....

[Guest Esc_Tracker]

My suggestion would be to simply challenge the credit card bill. Send the credit card company a copy of your cancellation confirmation and let it do the work. You are being charged for a service you have not purchased. This is something the credit card company is meant to protect you against. If enough people do this, the credit card company yanks its card use autorization from the service. This normally shuts the scam down if the card providor is something like VISA.

 

Esc-Tracker

[Guest MrB]

I always get the trial offer then cancel it the same day, and that's always worked for me... never got a recurring charge... they can't claim I did not give them enough time :-) but I still get the full three days, week, month or whatever the offer was

 

 

Have fun!

 

 

MrB

[Justice]

LAST EDITED ON Apr-29-01 AT 10:39AM (EST)[p]The problem of recurring credit card billings resulting from trial memberships is perennially discussed another message board that I participate in. :-( I'll summarize some of my fellow posters suggestions at the end of this post.

 

I myself once had my credit card hijacked by playgirl.com. The site claimed that I needed a valid credit card number in order to verify that I was adult. They lied and wound up charging $45 a month to my Visa card. x( There was a 1-800 number next to the charges. Two phone calls and repeated e-mails later, I FINALLY was able to get the charges reversed. (I was lucky, several other guys mentioned that they had to cancel their credit cards in order to stop the charges.x()

 

As I noted above, this problem frequently comes up on one of the other board's that I participate in. Here's some of the solutions that have been suggested:

 

1) There should be a telephone number next to the charges. In most cases its toll free, but in other cases you will have to pay long distance charges. (If you're not familiar with the area code then call information to find out where it is.) Call the number on the bill -- even it it means paying long distance charges.

 

2) There's usually an address for snail mail on the site. Send a certified letter (with a return receipt requested) to the address.

 

3) Involve your credit card company. Tell them that your disputing the charges because you did not authorize them. They may send you a form to fill out. You don't have to admit that you were watching gay porn -- just reiterate that you didn't authorize the charge. If they give you a hard time, tell them that your going to cancel the card. That'll get their attention. (Speaking of credit card companies -- my Discover Card lets me go on line and create a temporary credit card number. It expires after one transaction. I understand that American Express has a similar feature.)

 

4) If necessary, cancel the credit card.

 

 

Involving the credit card company is probably the easiest way to get the problem resolved. Good luck and please keep us posted.

[Guest Jason Coxx]

LAST EDITED ON Apr-29-01 AT 11:54AM (EST)[p]I have no knowledge about this particular company but I do know that it is very hard to cancel most trail memberships. Some adult advertisers that have wanted to place banners on my website have offered me $50 a sale for a $2.95 3 day trial membership. There is no way that they are making money if they allow you to cancel within 3 days.

 

Jason Coxx

http://www.jasoncoxx.com

917-242-8307

[Guest BeercanThick]

The problem is I don't have the confirmation of cancellation anymore. I ran into a little computer virus about two months ago called Naviedad.exe which wiped me clean.

I had to rebuild and when I did, it was gone.

 

I think I will call my bank, I had been hesitant since I didn't want to have to explain to them what the charges were for but damn I can't be spending $30 a month for something that I'm not using.

 

I even thought about using the site since I had the membership but I found it boring. No audio (which I like) and even though I have DSL and the visuals move smoothly, nothing really happens.

 

I think in three months or so, I saw one hot scene, when Spike came on a table and I was shocked at the sheer amount that he shot. But I digress....

[Guest EvilSwine]

If you're worried about charges like this you should stick with one of the larger AVS sites like UGAS,Adultcheck, or Cyberage. There are a bunch of AVS's where you don't have to do a deal like you are describing. I've got some porn sites and roam around looking for sponsors and have found a few lately that aren't AVS's that are presenting deals like the one you describe- "get a free membership to this site if you sign up for this other thing". It's another marketing tool which I'm sure that people are now abusing. There have always been people who have poor customer service or who dick people around by not cancelling memberships when they're supposed to.

 

On the other hand, legitimate adult paysites have a problem with customers, too. There are a lot of customers who sign up for a site and who use them for months and then call the credit card companies and do a chargeback, claiming they never signed up for the site. This happens with a lot of non-adult sites, too, which sell products over the internet, like Lands End, MSN, even some guy in Maine who sells lobsters over the internet. I would never charge back except as a last resort, but if you've cancelled a membership and you have people still charging you, I'd do it. Otherwise, if you get the service or product you ordered and then charge back, it's stealing.

[Guest BeercanThick]

Dude, I am so sorry, I seem to have highjacked your thread!

 

My bad!

 

My deepest apologies!

[Guest pickwick]

Yes, I have had a similar experience with Adultcheck, supposedly one of the more "reputable" verification companies. I signed up for a year's subscription for $19.95 and later learned that they were charging my credit card for that sum each and every month. I contested the charges with my card issuer and obtained a refund, although not without making many telephone calls to the customer service department. As a result of this experience I no longer give my card number to any company connected with the "adult" entertainment industry. None of them can be trusted.

[Guest EvilSwine]

jason-

 

yeah, they're making money. Either on upsells, shaving signups from your stats, or they're truly generous people who have a high retention rate. A paysite may pay you $50, but they are charging that person who signs up a monthly recurring fee. So paying you $50 may make them a gross of $120 if the person recurs for 3 months for a net of $70 to them. If the same site has a high retention where people recur for 6 months, then you're looking at their having a gross of $240/customer. But just remember that $50 is a special rate that not everyone is going to get.

 

Probably the best sites are the ones that put up new content daily or weekly for customers. Higher retention rates and if the webmaster uses them as a recurring sponsor with a 50/50 or 60/40 split, more money for the webmaster over the long run, too.

[Guest EvilSwine]

I've got an AdultCheck membership and never had the problem you had with billing. Therefore, extrapolating that "none of them can be trusted" from your single experience is like assuming that because a person ordered a product from a site like Outpost.com and then charged back with no intention of paying for it, every other customer is also a thief.

[Guest BeercanThick]

So.....uh......back to Adultsights? Do they scam you?

 

Sorry Fin!