Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  04/22/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  In May 2020, I purchased a bundle of 10 lessons through this merchant. We recently reviewed our bank statements and realized they had charged me as a subscriber ($97.20 every 4 weeks). I reached out to the merchant via email on April 14th, following the cancelation/refund process they described (*********************************************). We received an email notification later that evening that they had updated their Payment and Refund Policy. They have made no attempt to contact me or cancel my "subscription" and charged us again on April 20th. Their website shows my history of 10 lessons, with no active transactions on my account (screenshots attached). I am seeking a full refund for all the charges made following the initial one-time charge that was clearly described to the merchant over the phone. The total amount refunded should be $1,166.40 ($97.20 charged 12 times). One additional piece of information - even if they mistakenly thought I intended to purchase a subscription, the initial email received from them indicates they will refund all unused lessons - I currently have over 6000 minutes of lesson time in my account (screenshots attached).

  

  Business response

  06/06/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 7, 2022/05/13) */ The customer claims that she sent an email on April 14th, but as you will see in the this screenshot by clicking on the following link ************************************************************************ that email has not been sent neither in the year 2021 nor year 2022. Upon asking the customer to forward that email, the customer has not been able to provide the evidence. Hence there has never been a request to cancel the subscription. The customer has simply filed the dispute with her bank and filed a complaint with BBB. Clearly the customer did not intend to continue with the service so we treated those actions as a request to cancel the subscription. According to our Terms of Service found by clicking on the following link https://www.octb.us/tos we cancelled the subscription and refunded the last payment of the subscription. Please click on the following link to see the evidence of the refund ****************************************************************************. The email that the customer has referred to that followed the first payment clearly states that the request has to be done via email which again has never been requested and it also provides links to a more detailed information of how the cancellation should be request and what our refund policy is. We cannot possibly include all the details of such policy in a thank you email. And if she has simply followed the outlined steps we would have cancelled the subscription immediately. It's unfair to expect that the merchant will refund unused classes if the customer never requested the cancellation and that's why you can only file the dispute with the bank for the last 3-4 payments. The customer had to accept the Terms of Service at the time of processing the first payment or she would not have been able to place the payment please see the screenshot attached. Please click on the following links to see the steps the customer would have to take 1) before accepting the terms of service https://www.dropbox.com/s/66y6jvmic2fkljo/Terms%20of%20Services%20Disclosure.png?dl=0 and 2) immediately after the checkbox accepting the terms of service has been clicked ************************************************************************ Furthermore, the lessons purchased by the customer never expire and she can receive the service at that time when she is ready to start again. Consumer Response /* (3000, 13, 2022/05/30) */ Please reopen this case, as it has not been resolved. The vendor is lying about not receiving an email on April 14th - the email was sent to the one specified on their website for cancelation (**********************). The issue does not revolve around whether or not I canceled my subscription. I never signed up for a subscription to begin with. I spoke with a girl on the phone who took my payment information after I asked her to provide me with a bundle of 10 lessons. Business Response /* (4000, 15, 2022/05/31) */ By no means we are lying about receiving the email that the customer is referring to, we even asked the customer to forward us the email they claim they sent, but as we've already provided you with the screenshot the customer never responded to our request. As far as the conversation the customer had with one of our customer support agents over the phone, we cannot go back and listen to the conversation that has taken place a year ago (our system allows to do it for less than 3 months), but it doesn't superseed the acceptance of terms of service by the customer when she processed the initial payment. Our customer support representative probably meant that the customer could cancel at any time. We reminded the customer to schedule the classes on a weekly basis. They were charged monthly (every 28 days) and hence the payments were shown on their bank statements. We've cancelled the subscription immediately after receiving such requests. The customer has already disputed the two charges before the last that was already refunded, so we will have to wait for the decision of the bank. In the meantime, we would like to inform the customer that they can continue to take classes at no cost until 08/31/2022 even though we normally require an active subscription to schedule those. In the end you can not learn a language in just 10 classes, that's why we offer a subscription base payment.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩