| ifriends |
| IFriends Unclear and fraudelent charges/ Complete online scam!!! Internet |
| 2nd of May, 2011 by User767720 |
I was mislead by this website. The private chat rooms were indicated to be priced at between $2.99 and $9.99 per minute. The chat was friendly and the host attempted to get me to go to a private room, where pricing was discussed at that time; however, I did not upgrade to a VIP status and did not go into a private room. At the conclusion of a chat, I was going to look for another person to chat with when my access was denied as my credit card was "maxed out". I immediately check my bank account to find pending charges of $479.04; $79.84; $62.79; and $1.19.
I was instructed upon creating a user account that charges of up to $2.00 would appear on my statement, which I was ok with. But the additional charges were absurd. I had spoken candidly with one of the hosts regarding charges when she wanted to chat in private and discussed the charges. I was never aware that just accessing the room would begin charging my account. The charges apparantly kept rolling up.
I immediately called the 1-800 number for IFriends, who obviously knew I was upset, actually asked me to quit cussing him. He agreed to credit $373 to my account of the total amount, which is a travesty. But as of right now, no credit has appeared on my statement, but the charges are still reflected. He even gave me a confirmation number of the credit.
This website is misleading and is a bogus internet scam. Please beware!! The website offers rewards and free access and indicates the credit card information is used for age verification purposes. Furthermore, the hosts indicate the billing is for private room chats and indicate the free chat areas are "free".
A refund of only a partial amount of this billing is unjust and this company should be closed all together on the internet. This company is not listed on the Better Business Bureau website and numberous complaints have been made against this company, which all seem to be very similar to my current complaint. I should have been more suspicious of the scam and checked this site before entering the IFriend website. I do not and have not frequented these type of websites and was quite naive to the type of scam I had gotten involved in.
I hope anyone has some suggestions as to how I can get my money back from this company. And I would like to know how I can assist in having this company shut down and removed from the internet. The owners and operators of this company should be jailed for committing internet fraud. |
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OK, I feel I have to respond to this post. I have heard of this kind of thing going on for far too long and now adding this to a website to report scams on the internet is preposterous and nothing short of criminal in and of itself.
I am a member of Ifriends. I have utilized the services there and of other sites of a similar nature. I find it ludicrous that this person or any other person that says that they do not know that they were being charged. It is even more preposterous when you understand the steps that Ifriends, as a company, takes to make sure that you understand when you are being charged and for what.
First, you must understand that Ifriends, for the most part, is NOT a free to private website where almost every other site out there operates in that fashion. Some chat hosts on Ifriends will operate that way, free to private, but the majority does not. What this means in a free to private site is that you are able to talk to a chat host and see them and you will not be charged, but if you wish to make it just a one on one chat and/or do something of a more private nature, then you make it private, denying anyone else able to see the host and whatever it is you are chatting about and being charged for that service. Ifriends does have an area for each host where you can chat with the host for free, but you will not be able to see the host. When you can see the chat host on Ifriends, you are being charged, but any other member can wander in, see what you and the host are talking about and anything else that maybe going on. Going private on Ifriends does not charge you anymore, but it makes it private between you and the chat host so you can do and say pretty much whatever your heart desires without fear of anyone else coming in and watching what you do or say. So, it is understandable that there maybe some confusion if you are used to other sites that utilize the free to private method. THAT STILL DOES NOT EXCUSE THE GROSS IGNORANCE OF NOT READING WHATEVER IT IS YOU ARE CLICKING ON!
Second, Ifriends takes great pains to explain on how the website works.there are some basic charges for the level of service, that you can either choose to partake or not, completely up to you. These usually run from a couple dollars to around twenty dollars per month, depending on what service you are ordering. Now, before you enter an area that will charge you, per minute like a phone call, Ifriends has a screen that you must click to confirm that you agree and understand that you are entering an area that incurs this kind of charging to your credit card. This screen explains it all, including what the chat host is charging, before you enter. I need to point out though, THE CHAT HOST IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR TELLING YOU THAT YOU ARE BEING CHARGED!!! I do agree that a good chat host will tell you, if asked, that you are being charged. Ifriends does this for them in order to avoid any of the confusion that so many of you people that utilize the service seem to suffer from and to let you have the best experience possible with the host.
Now, I hear that this kind of thing happens a great deal for refunds from Ifriends. Now don't get me wrong, there are some legitimate reason why a person should get a refund, maybe the host was belligerent in some way or there were some technical difficulties. However, the excuse that "I didn't know I was being charged" is the real crime here for a couple of different reasons.
1. Ifriends assumes that you are a somewhat intelligent person and can and will read the items before you agree to it. When you call complaining for a refund, Ifriends will almost always issue a refund. However, Ifriends will refund the portion that goes to the host long before they refund the portion that goes to owner/operators of the website. They do this because they WANT you to come back and spend your money with them.
2. The people that work as a chat host, whether it is only part-time or their only employment, are WORKING. They work damn hard to provide you an incredible and satisfying experience. When you call saying that you had no idea you were being charged, you rob them of their time and money. The money they earned by providing that service, and the time that they could have had spent with someone that understands and pays the debts that they incur.
3. the people that engage the chat hosts that have no intention to ever payup what they owe. Yes, they are out there, including the ones that have programs that hide their IP address and make false accounts. NOT ONLY YOU ARE INTENTIONALLY RIPPING OFF THE CHAT HOSTS, YOU ARE PLANNING AND PREPARING FOR IT IN ADVANCE. YOU ARE ENGAGING IN CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR AND IT IS MY MOST FERVANT WISH THAT YOU ARE CAUGHT, MADE TO PAY WHAT YOU OWE, AND SPEND TIME BEHIND BARS!
Now, I really wish that Ifriends would get tough and tell all you folks that try squirm out of what you legitimately owe to them and the chat host whose service you engage that you will not be refunded anything as you clicked on a binding agreement, of your own free will, to pay whatever charges you incur and that YOU KNEW, by clicking on the agreement button, THAT YOU WERE BEING CHARGED. Whatever reason you have to try to get a refund, whether it be that you cant afford the charges you made, afraid that your life partner will see the credit card statement or any other more malicious reason, you need to grow up and act like the adult that you say you are and pay what you owe. I am tired of all these people that say its the chat hosts fault, or the websites fault when it is abundantly clear that it is your own damn fault and that you are just trying wiggle out of paying and or cover your own ass from a future predicament. Its way past time to be the man/woman that you say you are and pay what you owe. Its all part of being an adult and knowing your limitations. Then maybe we can avoid reading these obviously ridiculous and slanderous posts against a legitimate business and the hard working people that make it a success. |
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| The above is all in good, but a bit more clarity on how much you have been charged, a reciept, or a time/money counter/tracker on the pay area would be nice. Because although I knew I was being charged, for the most part there is no way to tell you how much you have been charged during a chat session until you look at your bank statement. That is the real scam. The only way I found was to buy in wallet dollars and monitor, that which in my experience quickly drained, and I had no idea how fast. Ie how they charge partial minutes, seconds...ect. |
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I can personally attest to the fact that Ifriends overcharges when you do go into private. I have constantly gotten charged double the number of minutes that I have been in private. It happens virtually every time you go into private. They say that you were in private for concurrent sessions sometimes, as if that was even possible. When I speak with them, they say, "Well, our servers say you were in pvt for 10 minutes" when in fact it was five. I tell them that 5 minutes doesn't magically turn into 10. Apparently in their servers it does. I decided to record one of these sessions for proof. It was obviously done on purpose, based on the idea people will be too embarrassed to dispute it. Take a look at an example here. No nudity, as it is...
http://www.xvideos.com/video915038/ifriends_double_charges
This is what Ifriends considers to be 6 minutes according to their servers, not the 2:16 it actually is. Round up to 3:00 just to be fair, but come on. |
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