Guthy-Renker Meaningful Beauty scam, rip off, shady business dealings, dishonest, threat to your credit score, LIARS Des Moines Iowa

Don't Do It!!!!  These people are classic scammers.  I fell for it(yes, I'm ashamed to admit it).  I too wanted beautiful, dewey and glowing skin.  The television commercial advertised an entire facial beauty regimen for $39.95.  Great, sign me up.  Somehow in the last 3 minutes of the call I was suckered into a $10 upgrade which included several other products that I just couldn't live without(yeah, right).  So now we are at $49.95 for a 90 day supply(just as was advertised on the commercial).  I am kinda a control freak so I went over all the details with the customer service rep and she asssured me that I was receiving a 90 day supply for $49.95.  She did say that after the 90 days that I would have another shipment sent to me unless I cancelled(auto shipment/auto billing).

It arrives a week or so later.  I gave it my best effort.  I smeared the lotions and potions onto my face and neck religiously for several weeks.  When I didn't notice a difference I thought oh well, it was worth a try.  I better cancel this now so I don't end up with a ton of this stuff.  When I called to cancel the rep on the phone informed me that my card would still be charged the amount of $49.95 2 more times.  Huh?  I said no... I purchased a 90 day supply.  She said yes you did and payment is in installments of 49.95(x3).  I immediately become slighly irritated and explain to the woman that this is blatant bait and switch and that I don't do business with people who chose to fraud their customers.  She says that I can send the remainder of the products back and that I will receive a full refund.  Great.  So I go to the post office and shove all those little bottles into a priority mail box and send it back. 

Problem solved right???? WRONG.  Several weeks go by and I open my credit card statement and what do I see?  Another charge on my card from Meaningful Beauty.  I call my credit card and explain that I cancelled the product/sent it back and am unsure why they would charge me.  She very kindly offers to contact them on a threeway call.  Meaningful Beauty rep proceeds to tell me and my credit card rep that they haven't received the package.  OH REALLY?  I pull out the USPS receipt and read off the tracking # and the expected date of delivery(2 weeks ago).  Meaningful Beauty then tells me that I need to provide them with proof of my shipment.  I LOST IT(not the receipt... my cool!!!!).  I explained to her that this was the most ridiculous shady scam I'd ever been privy too and asked my credit card rep what my recourse was.  She then politely told the Meaningful Beauty rep to have a nice day and hung up on her.  She then told me that this company is NOTORIOUS for this exact situation and that she would like to begin the process of contesting the charge.  Yes, thank you!  She explains that I need to watch my statement in case there is a pending charge lurking and gladly refunds my 2 payments of $49.95.  Subsequently another charge did go thru and my credit card company was happy to dispute that also AND put a stop to any future attempt from this company to charge my card. 

Whew!  That was close... almost fell victim to these crooks... but wait, I'm not out of the woods yet because today I open a collection letter from Guthy-Renker informing me that I owe them $99.90.  In fact, according to these shady scammers I'm 2 months past due!  Wow.  These people have some... uh-hem.  Anyways... So I call them and in my syrupy sweetest voice I explain the situation and I ask that they remove this charge as I have returned the product months ago and I don't owe them anything.  She put me on hold for over 10 minutes and came back on the line and assured me(her words not mine) that the charge was removed and to ignore any future letters.  I suspect this isn't over....

So... to anyone out there considering this product DON"T DO IT!!!!  They are horrible to deal with and their product(while it didn't hurt my skin) really wasn't all that.  Thanks for reading and good luck.  Go up to the mall and get some products there.... way better stuff and no hassle returns!!!