Domestications Hanover Direct Charges when you call customer service for any reason- the representatives get rewards for selling you memberhips even when you say NO. Ripoff Weehawken New Jersey

Jim: I am one of the "iliterate and ignorant incompetent idiots totally incapable of dealing with the most straightforward orders and issues" that you refer to. I am a warehouse employee (hourly) at Hanover Direct, Roanoke, VA. Please let me assure you that I, as well as the other members of our "team", strive to ship you the "perfect" order. This is no easy task, as we work in less than a perfect environment. We are under production goals, error rates, and constantly changing
requirements. This is warehouse wide for hourly employees. It is unfortunate that management is not as accountable for their performance as we. For the most part, we, the lowly hourly employees are blamed for everything that is wrong with the end result of each order. It is of no interest to management as to how, or why we sometimes fail the customer. It is one thing to demand perfection from employees, yet another to provide the tools necessary to accomplish this. All things considered, we do our best to get each customer the product they ordered, in good condition, and in a timely manner. We have no control over what kind of service you receive when you contact customer service, or how you are treated when placing and order, or tracking your order. Do we make mistakes? Yes, but rest assured that we are held accountable for each and every error that we make.
As for the company going "belly up", you may well be correct in that prediction, but rest assured, that the blame cannot be placed on hourly people. Our part in that scenerio will be but a tiny drop in the big picture.

And lots of companies participate in this illegal activity.

Several years ago I was crammed by a program I never agreed to and was never sent the "information packet". It was one of those very limited cancellation timeframe and if you did not cancel within 30 days you were stuck in the program for a year. The information packet was to be for review so you could cancel within the time frame. it was never sent, so I was not aware of it in time to cancel. The cc company that crammed denied all knowledge, it was the program that told me it was the CC companies telemarketing staff that did it, as they already have your cc information. It was cancelled at no charge as they did discover that I never agreed to it.

I recently discovered 2 bogus charges on my credit card statement. When I called to question the charges I was told we signed up for them when we depostied a check from the cc company.

The only place those cc checks get deposited is into the shredder. Both were programs we would never have signed up for at all and never cashed/deposited those types of check.

Yesterday on the Today show - they exposed another cramming scam
You purchase something online and fill out a survey -not related to your purchase.
By filling out the survey you signed up for some membership programs without your knowledge. they use the same cc info you provided for your purchase.

again Yesterday on the local news they told us to check our phone bills, as they are also allowing 3rd parties to bill you for services you never signed up for. One lady discovered she was paying for a voicemail security feature and did not even have voice mail.

No company should be allowed to do this - file a complaint with the FTC.

Memberworks, VerTrue, United Marketing Group, and later, various scams involving "free" magazine subscriptions--when the epitath of Hanover Direct, The Company Store, and their associated companies, to include Silhouettes, is written, it will say that the vicious and aggressive short-term greed of management and the collated dementia of these absurb scams were what caused a fundamentally good company with solid to absolutely wonderful products to go belly up. These travel and discount programs, over the course of the last couple decades, became the driving force behind employment at the call centers, and caused many employees, directly and indirectly, and often for reasons of conscience, to abandon the ridiculous idiots who "lead" this company.

These flimflam companies sell what is very much a useless service--discounts on
things which are already discounted pretty much everywhere--through third parties, and the usual pattern is that employees come very close to fraud to maintain high sales percentages. The company pushes and pushes for higher and higher sales figures. As a result, the companies have lost most of their
consumer base.

Equally idiotic, the move of the warehouse for The Company Store to Roanoke, Virginia, from its well-organized MidWest headquarters was an absolute disaster, putting the company in the hands of illiterate and ignorant incompetent idiots, totally incapable of dealing with the most straightforward orders and issues.
This was done without any forethought, apparently, and led to repeated
disasters.

Like so many other doomed American companies, this one was led to the slaughter by greedy "leaders", whose retirement "platinum parachutes" exceed by millions of times those of competent, loyal employees who did nothing
to contribute to the company's failure, whilst the nitwits who led the corporate ship right into the business iceberg take away seven and eight digit stipends.

Too bad none of them will ever be prosecuted for the massive frauds they perpetrated, but we don't do that to business moguls in America.
What a pity!

At some point you must have said Yes if you have not I advise calling the company back and request them to review your phone call. They can go back and listen to it and find out if the agent was not following the scripts and guidlines. If they accepted it with out you saying yes and by with out reviewing your credit card information with again then it was accepted against your request. But if you did say yes and give them the last 4 digets of your credit card this was your fault for not staying on top of it. The program it self is not owned by HDI and also not billed by HDI it's billed and sent from the company that we offer it for. So if you never got it we would not know that.At some point you must have said yes if you have not I advise calling the company back and request them to review your phone call. They can go back and listen to it and find out if the agent was not following the scripts and guidelines. If they accepted it without you saying yes and without reviewing your credit card information with again then it was accepted against your request. But if you did say yes and give them the last 4 digits of your credit card this was your fault for not staying on top of it. The program it self is not owned by HDI and also not billed by HDI it's billed and sent from the company that we offer it for. So if you never got it we would not know that. But if you were just hoping to get $50 worth of free gas and then just complain about it I just want to leave you with this. When someone reads you a script listen to it very carefully if you don't understand the terms and conditions or maybe the agent was new to it and was not used to the script and stumbled a lot ... JUST SAY NO. It's always the best thing to do.