Bad People in Good Business! Online Buyers Beware!

Just as we still have some bad people in our lives, there are companies with employ bad workers. my latest rant deal with the very subject of bad company workers and as the saying goes "the right of management not knowing from the customers point of view, what the left hand of their bad workers are doing. However, this company's actions are due to the influenced of the bad people we want out of our lives. I stated some time ago that the people who harassed me at home have also been cyber stalking me and on a few occasions messed with the heads of people I associate with online and it is a fact that they have messed with people who have access to my online accounts.  Below is the recent attempt to harm me and husband.

True situation, several months ago a once great book club to my mind eyed prior to the recent incident, upgraded their website. in doing so, the family account we held with them became deactivated without prior notice of the book  club. now off and on during the decades we had had several account with several of the books clubs under BCM without incident and great service. 

However, from what I have gather from the web and other disenchanted customers of BCM, the company was sold to Direct Brand, Inc (sue me).  The caused possibly to booster sales from low print sales. But, who cares about the cause, it appear when customer went to one of their book club websites that thing had not change very much and that BMC was still the same the best for books and especially those not commonly found in local book stores. 

No way. When BCM fell under new ownership and new management. things began to spiral down, especially in buyer's orders, never shipped, longer waits, cancels orders by in-house-workers, and a new customer service department that when it comes to handling requests and complaint just flat out sucks!

We first experience this back in June of 2013 when the introductory we received was minus one book. at that time we thought nothing of it. the last book on the order list was going to arrive a little. at least this was our initialed thinking. Not the case. Therefore when august 2013 and no fourth book, we contacted the book club. After all of the books were paid for and we should have received them by this point. 

BCM response: We processed your order, and it is set to deliver on 08/26/2013.

being the patience customers that we had been up to that date, we took this response to mean that the fourth book of the originally introductory package would be delivered on the above date. fat chance, august 26, 2013 came and went and the good thing that was happening was that weather outside was turning cooler. 

When the book did not come in August, we contacted Direct Brands, Inc. and after not receiving a response in September 2013 we contacted the BBB and filed a complaint against and BCM and Direct Brands, Inc. for not honoring the agreed introductory sale and ignoring our request to send us the four books.  Well, went over like overdone potatoes and the customer service folk at BMC  became so livid that they began to tell more lies about shipping dates, ignoring requests, and a1though book was listed on their web page as "in stock", they stated that the book was on back order.

Having accrued all enough uncreative input from BCM we once again and again and again contacted Direct Brands, Inc. via fax.  

We got and call from a very nice man, who had reviewed all everything and ordered the book at no cost to us with a tracking number, and we received it within five days of his call. So simply, we were happy that the deal was finished. However, some damaged had been done and we just did feel that BCM would handled our account with them correctly so we canceled it after fulfilling our part of the buyers agreement.  

September comes to a close and December has rolled into play. We really did want to close our book club account and missed it. So we opened a new account with the same BCM book club but thinking to avoid a repeat of the same unpleasant experience we selected to open it under a new name. it did not do any good. 

After three tries to get the same introductory from December 2013 to the February 2014, and having it canceled on us twice, we gave up, canceled to third order ourselves and requested to the BCM account, which stated was not completely in their system be canceled and all personal and billing information deleted as well.

It never happened the way it should have, and there was another round of customer service mishandling of request as stated above about the first BCM account fiascos. Here are some of excused we received after three failed attempts to get the book sand these are exact wording.

Our comment: Second request. Please cancel this account, I do longer want.

-----

Feb. 11, 2014

Thank you for contacting us.

If you choose to cancel your Club membership, please return the
enrollment shipment when received using the postage paid mailing label
being mailed to you separately. When we receive your return shipment we
will cancel your membership. To ensure proper handling, please enclose a
copy of this message and the original invoice in the return package and
allow 2-3 weeks for processing.

If we may be of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us.

-----

Our response:

Dear Mr. K,

Please cancel my account. I do not want it any longer for the following reasons.

1. After three attempts, the Introductory Order was never sent to me.
2. This is my third attempt to have this account closed. It is clear that your customer service personnel is neither processing my order, nor honoring my requests to close (cancel) my account.

The enrollment order was never sent, which is why after three attempts to get the same books, I finally canceled the last attempt. After all this time, I do not believe I will receive any orders. Please cancel this account.

 -----

Feb. 11, 2014

I received your cancellation request and cancelled your Book Automatic Shipment Membership.

Your account has been converted to a special Member’s Choice plan, where you will no longer need to respond to the Featured Selection(s) notifications and shipments will not be sent to you automatically. However, you will still be able to take advantage of our amazing club offers and receive emails and/or catalogs about the books that you love. You can order what you want, when you want without worrying about automatic shipments!

We apologize for any difficulties you may have had with the Club recently. We are working hard to enhance the new website and are committed to serving our fellow readers. To show how much we value your membership, we would like to offer you 50% off your next website order. Simply use this special one-time promo code (MEMBERSCHOICE) during your checkout process.

You may receive two additional future notices asking you to respond to your Featured Selections. Note: If any previous Featured Selection(s) notices were not refused prior to this new account status, the items will be shipped on your account.

If you do not wish to receive notifications of our upcoming offers and newest selections, or if you do not wish to continue with the Member's Choice plan, just let us know by responding to this email.

Sincerely,

EC

Customer Service

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Our response: The enrollment order was never sent, which is why after three attempts to get the same books, I finally canceled the last attempt. After all this time, I do not believe I will receive any orders. Please cancel this account.

This type scenario went on longer than we want.  we wanted nothing to do with BCM. finally on Feb 23, 2014 we filed another complaint against the company on this new account sighting the about reasons. Finally, we got a response from the BBB with a message from Direct Brands, Inc. It states:

Dear Ms. ---:

I am responding to the follow–up inquiry your office forwarded for Mrs.

Altheimer-Fain.

As noted in our March 4, 2014 letter, we closed Mrs. Altheimer–Fain’s

account. Members may still access their accounts online for a short period of

time after the account has been closed.

Please assure Mrs. Altheimer-Fain that the account is closed.

You may contact me with any questions. You may also

send an e-mail to

Sincerely,

C A

Correspondence Specialist

---------------

This information turned out to be untrue. So we contacted again to update our complaint because we were able to login into the account and all our information was still there. Finally, we got this response.

Dear Ms. ---:

I am responding to the follow–up inquiry your office forwarded for Mrs. Altheimer-Fain.

    

As noted in our March 4, 2014 letter, we closed Mrs. Altheimer–Fain’s account.  Members may still access their accounts online for a short period of time after the account has been closed. 

Please assure Mrs. Altheimer-Fain that the account is closed.

You may contact me at 800-480-7094 ext 3079 with any questions. You may also send an e-mail to book.executive.services@directbrands.com.  

Sincerely,

C A

Correspondence Specialist

Email: book.executive.services@directbrands.com

---------------

After receiving this response, we tried logging into the account and was unable to do so.  believing that Mystery Guild had finally closed the account and deleted our information, we put the ordeal behind us and vowed to buy our books elsewhere.

however, Mystery Guild has only prevented us from logging in because as we discovered on March 24, 2014. Someone in that book club had re-ordered the books we had canceled and made an unauthorized request for payment on bank account. 

Pissed off that we could not login to see what was happening with an account that we were "assured" was closed, we filed more complaint against Mystery Guild and Direct Brands, Inc.  although, our bank had seen the documents showing the complaints against the company and where they had stated the account closed. the customer service people handling of the matter was totally unprofessional.  Regardless, of the number of times we told them the account was closed and they were illegally seeking payment for an order we did not make and for books we no longer wanted from them, they continue  to behave badly.  Finally we received an email stating the books has been shipment, but the tracking number was invalid and from this we believed that this shipment was another way of harass us.

Nevertheless, we had taken all the step to inform the proper authorities, filed a dispute, and canceled and destroy the card that the unauthorized charges were put on as they made a second charge on the card. one charge was dropped but the other stayed, and the dispute was in place. 

Then on April 1, 2014, we get a box of "unwanted" books from Mystery Guild. Our first thought send them back.  However, we thought compromise the better choice as we no longer trust Mystery Guild and wanted to put an end to their unprofessional sale practices in our lives.

One would think that this all ended well. It did not because one of the books was never on our original order when the first opened the account.  However, it take it as a clue to identity of the person(s)  responsible for the problems we have had with the book clue. 

To those people, I want you to know that we have been aware of your attempts to access on our online account for some time.  Like here at home, we knew you were actively contacting businesses we deal with and their security  and our local police has been informed of your action. your malicious actions has cost people their jobs and their reputations here in town and on the web. 

If you sought to hurt us, you did not. You are insane.   Thank to the book we received, we know who you are and where you are. Do not threaten us anyone more.  All has been reported to the police and you with it.  

In addition, stop with the cars. I know you saw me come out last night and I saw you get up to make a call. The speeding cars started soon afterward. So stop threatening us. We do not know what lies you have been told or the lies we you are telling, but leave the businesses we deal with alone. We are an elderly couple and we seriously do not want nor need you in our life. Stay out of our lives. We have no interest in you. So get lost!

Do we forgive Mystery Guild for their part in all this? No, and we will never do business with them again.

To other online card users, if a website does not offer the option that let you delete your billing information while still maintaining your account and the option to manually to cancel your account yourself, shop at a site that does so. In addition, also choose websites with the security payment methods and/or Pay Pal. This means choosing websites connected to shipping agencies with tractable tracking systems that allows you see what is happening with your purchases.