Chasing Fireflies And Fraud

CHASING FIREFLIES

Over Spring Break I found this magazine sitting at my Mom -In-Laws house. The clothes were adorable but SOOOO expensive!!! Rylie decided that she wanted the above skirt, but the price tag read 326.00. CRAZY. Not happenin'. Then Aunt Pauline and Grammy piped in that if we went to the fabric store and Rylie was willing to take some sewing lessons and work really hard that together they could make the skirt. Pauline and I took off for Jo-Ann's Fabrics and 36.00 later we had everything we needed to make a 326.00 skirt. Isn't that insane??? Rylie worked her tooshie off cutting, sewing, gathering, and piecing and after two days this is the masterpiece.



NOW

THAT"S

CUTE!!!

Good job Rylie and thanks Grammy and Pauline for encouraging and teaching Rylie. What a cool first time sewing project. And the best part is that there's enough left over fabric to make Sophia and Ivy a skirt too. All for 36.00.

FRAUD

A few months ago I was researching the coveted Acai Berry when an offer for a free trial popped up on the computer screen. The offer was for a two week trial, no strings attached. Just give them your credit card number and all you pay for is 3.95 for shipping and handling. Well, I'd rather try it first so I took the offer. NOT A GOOD IDEA! The free trial came. It wasn't a two week trial, but I did like the product. A couple of weeks later another bottle showed up. In my head I was thinking it was a bottle to complete the two week trial I had paid for, but instead a charge for 89.31 showed up on my Visa. The next month a 39.00 charge showed up for some online fitness web site I had never heard of. Visa said that somehow they were connected and reversed the charge for the fitness magazine, but because Extreme Acai Berry had actually sent me more product that they could not reverse the 89.31 charge. They informed me that when I took the free trial offer I also signed myself up for a monthly membership. Both the fraud investigator and I went onto the website and when you say that you want the free trial offer there is NOTHING that states that your joining a membership. It isn't until you hit a tiny button, and I mean tiny on the very bottom of the screen that says 'terms' that you even find out that you're joining a membership. The fraud investigator said that the reason they ask you to pay for the trial is to get your credit card number so they can keep on charging you. Most people will call Extreme Acai Berry and cancel their membership, which they have to abide by, but they have just walked away with 89.31. Do that several times a day and they have a money making business. So, though they send you a product, it is really deceptive and fraudulent, but done in a legal way. SO FRUSTRATING! Well I fought it and fought it, signed affidavits, wrote a letter, called Extreme Acai Berry, made a claim with Visa though the billing department, wrote another letter, made more phone calls and just this week received a letter from Visa that after a thorough investigation they were indeed reversing the charge and that I was liable for none of the charges. I am not sure what the huge difference is in making a claim through the fraud department vs. making a claim with the billing department, but whatever I did it worked. Thank goodness! I was not about to give up with out a good fight. I have never been dooped like that before. It's such a helpless feeling to know that these companies had my credit card number and that they were using it willingly. Visa did close the card and issue us a new one because they could already see on next months statement that more fraud charges were coming through. SCARY I say! And another scary thing is that the companies were out of Utah. Lame.