SUBMITTED: Wednesday, August 06, 2003
POSTED: Thursday, August 07, 2003
I was recently fired from Memberworks in Montreal. I learned a lot about how that company works around the law to 'steal' money from 'members' who never signed up, in the two weeks I was there. I was fired for no reason as the rest of my training group, which i wont even get into the topic that they are subsidized by the government and recieve money and lots of it for job creation, training ends so do our careers.
To write out all the loopholes would take me all night and probably won't make it online for it would be pages. Although I will try to give info often as possible as I go through my training manual. But right now I will give the major tips.
If you end up finding out that you have a membership from MWI/Memberworks and many other names it goes by and don't want it and you call to cancel... The reps (msr's)will give an overview of the membership and how wonderful it is, two benefits of staying with the program and one retention to try to keep you with the membership. It's a corny script they must read and if they don't they are fired.
You must confirm your name and adress including zip code to have the msr continue with the cancellation. So the best way to do it is confirm your adress name etc. When they ask 'how may I help you?' just say cancel and hang up. It's law that they process the cancelation. About getting your money back, it's a little harder but if you say any of the following ($, charges, fees etc) that will defenitely bring you closer to getting your way. The thing that will really get to them is if you say "I did not authorize these charges!" Authorize is also another one of those key words that will get things done faster. For some reason if you have a membership that was offered to you on behalf of citibank you have more options. Such as having the membership for 6 months full money back guarantee. Or you could have a pro rata membership and get back the unused portion of your yearly fee...but now get this, if you are really irate and demand full refund, they will likely put you through to a supervisor and they are 'suppose' to give you a full refund.
Another thing to do would be to complain to the client of memberworks who referred you in the first place. Remember, as much as I think Memberworks are theifs, someone referred you to them and gave them your credit info. Mostly this happens through home shopping network, banks, credit cards, aol pop up ads, mortgages etc. So it's two companies that are working to rip you off and you have the right to know who and to discontinue sneaky dealings with those companies. If for example your credit card company helped to enroll you, make sure that you have a good long talk with your credit card holders and tell them that you won't accept that behavior and demand a change in their policies. Also ask the msr how you were enrolledand they have to tell you. If for some reason for example the msr says through Aol, and you never even had a computer then you might want to check into someone in your household or others using your credit card number to make purchases. Anyone in your household (2 adults and 2 children under 18) can sign you up using your credit card.
So please be careful and listen attentively as to how you were enrolled. Ask a lot of questions to the msr about billing dates, charges, fees, whatever you can think of that might help you investigate. The msr's mottow is to 'honor dont mention' that means they won't mention things that you might need to hear, but if you ask they must. To end it once and for all tell them that you want your name and number removed from their list and they have to do it, just like all telemarketers.
I hope this helps.