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Review 2/10/2010
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You know something's fishy when a company has to post reviews themselves to try to bump their star rating on the BBB (previous two entries). Unfortunately for them, the complaints are what drive the F rating, not the reviews. FYI, when I first dealt with them last year, their rating was a C-. I told them I'd work to make sure their secret got out. Looks like my work was worth it. Here's my experience as I told it to my card's investigator. As it is, make sure you take screen shots of all your correspondence through the website portal as that's the only way to preserve it, if you do make the regrettable decision to do business with them, that is. I'm sure you'll agree, this was a lot of work for nothing:
On March 3rd of this year, I noticed an online ad calling for auditions for the television sitcom “The Office”, and decided that was something I’d like to attempt (please don’t judge me based on this, my job sucks). When I clicked on the ad, I was redirected to Talenthunter.com, a website purportedly serving as a medium between aspiring creative talent and the entertainment/modeling industry. As I scanned the site, many of its functions were disabled; that’s when I read that one needed to become a “Gold Member” to access these functions. As luck would have it, Talenthunter was running a special “Three-day Trial” for only $1.99, so I signed up using my (credit card redacted) thinking I could just cancel it immediately and still use the three days to try for an audition on “The Office”.
Immediately after giving a strange company my card info, I started having second thoughts about what I’d just done and, as a fairly web-savvy consumer, went straight to Talenthunter’s “Terms of Use” to determine how one would go about canceling this service (Item #15 in printout 1) properly. So, I did as they say and sent an email to cancellations@talenthunter.com (printout 2), and quickly received an email response from their “automated system” (printout 3).
As you’ll see from the email, the only options for canceling are: fax, mail and through a portal on their site. Being that I don’t have a fax machine and regular mail might “get lost” or show up late, I decided my best cancelation method would be through the web portal. I would’ve preferred a simple email address or phone number, but they don’t provide either on their cancelation page. Fearing that a simple email to their Customer Service Department would be construed as a breach of protocol (thereby constituting no formal cancelation of services) I continued on and officially sent my request for cancelation through the website on March 3, roughly 1 hour after signing up for the service and almost a full three days before they (by their own terms) could charge me for a full membership. Unfortunately, web portals don’t save messages and provide no proof of receipt (which seems to be a recurring theme with this company). As of that evening, I still hadn’t received any confirmation that they had received my request. I was really smelling a rat by this time so the next day, March 4, I went back through the portal to request a confirmation via email. Nothing came. The only thing I could do was await my (credit card redacted) bill to be sure they’d done as I requested.
My bill arrived last Thursday, April 2 and when I opened it, the charge for $39.99 was there. I immediately called your company to dispute the charge and request advice about how best to proceed. Your representative directed me to try to obtain written confirmation of my cancelation through any and all means described in the automated email (printout 3). When I got off the phone with your office, I sent an email to their Customer Service Department (printout 4).
The next morning I again tried to contact Talenthunter.com by all means available. I again sent a message through their web portal and was smart enough to take a screen shot of what I sent this time (printout 5). I tried twice to send a fax from work, but their fax machine wouldn’t pick up (printouts 6 and 7). Since mailing a letter wasn’t an option by this time, I found a phone number on another page of their site (1-888-443-3337) and called it six (6!) times that morning. Each time, after pressing 2 for “billing”, I listened to some jazz (I think it was Brubeck’s “Take Five”) and heard a woman’s voice (recording) tell me she was still trying to get someone to answer. Each time, she wound up telling me that no one was available. So I called back, pressing 2 for billing, and tried to press 1 when prompted, to leave a message, only to hear that they were not accepting voice messages at that time. I called again and tried to leave a message before going to billing. Same result. I called again and tried typing in the first three letters of Talenthunter.com’s president’s (Pedram J. Matian) first name (that I got from the Better Business Bureau’s website) to get his (her?) extension. No soap. I called again and typed the first three letters of his/her last name (also an option). Again, nothing (Yes, by this time I knew I was getting screwed. Just because I know you’re wondering). It wasn’t until after 5 (Mountain Time) that night when the possibility existed to leave a message with their answering service but since it was after 5 on a Friday I figured, what’s the point?
After all the empty calls and faxes I got angry and decided someone needed to do something about such obviously unethical and possibly, in my opinion, fraudulent business practices. So I went to the aforementioned BBB website and found the information I needed to lodge a complaint. I wasn’t the only one. To date, exactly 146 people have made refund, contractual or other complaints to the BBB (printout 8) about Talenthunter.com in the past 3 years. Before lodging my complaint, I read two other complaints that I’m sure you’ll agree, sound oddly familiar (printouts 9 and 10).
Later that day, after I’d lodged my complaints with (credit card redacted) and the BBB, I received an email from Talenthunter.com’s Customer Service Department (printout 11 -- this contains a written acknowledgement to cancel the service moving forward, but not retroactive to March 3 when I actually canceled), to which I responded (printout 12). After my email, I remembered the initial email to “cancellations@talenthunter.com” and forwarded that to them as well (printout 13). Three things here: “Regina” said they never received an email from me but: 1) Yes they did. It went to “cancellations@talenthunter.com” as they directed in their Terms of Use. 2) In their automated response to my request to cancel, emailing one’s cancelation isn’t an option and 3) that’s the exact same answer the other two complainants received in response to their BBB complaints (see 9 and 10 again). At this time (6pm, April 6), I’ve still not received a response to the two Customer Service emails I sent last Friday despite their contention on their answering service (which I’m intimately familiar with) that they answer all customer service emails within 24 hours.
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