Thursday, March 22, 2012

sheer cover scam

I noticed a weird charge on my bank account today, $9.95 that I had not authorized. I called the bank but they said there wasn't anything they could do. So I googled the company, Sheer Cover. Turns out that if you google 'sheer cover scam' you get a lot of hits. And you learn that Sheer Cover is one of the products sold by Guthy-Renker, the company behind many of the late night infomercials.

Once I had done that much research I called the bank back, and they were able to see that I had been signed up for monthly charges. So, what Sheer Cover had done, is that they had obtained my account information somehow, and then they had signed me up for monthly deliveries of their product, a mineral powder.

I asked the bank to stop all future payments to Sheer Cover. Then I put out their name on Twitter and Facebook, and wrote on their Facebook wall. And I filed a complaint with The Better Business Bureau.

Sheer Cover wrote me back on Facebook. Read the absurd exchange below. I've emailed Customer Service. Will keep you updated.

4 comments:

Katie H said...

That'd be funny if it wasn't so scary. I once lived in a commune, where my roomie answered a phone survey as a courtesy to the poor caller with a tough job (or so my roomie thought!). A week later, we got a charge of $89.95 for telephone advice or something like that. All Mike (roommate) had done was give the guy some information on how many were in the household, where we were, and such. Seemed legit and all, but it was a total scam!

Our landlord paid up, but gave us specific instructions just to hang up for any surveyors or any person we didn't know well. And so the world goes, getting a bit more unfriendly and unreliable, one scam at a time. . .

Lotta K said...

That's true! Just not trust anybody, and you'll have no friends but you'll be safe...

And it WAS funny, in its strange way, but I got way too mad to appreciate it at the time. It turned out, though, that I had scared them enough to make them actually respond to my email, and scratch me from their files (or so they said). Better Business Bureau also wrote back right away and wanted to expedite my case but by then it was already resolved. Of course the company wanted to imply that someone else had ordered the stuff, but the package showed up at my house a few days later.

Lotta K said...

Katie, I also meant to say that I took your advice and cut out dairy to see if that would help the sinuses. And it did! Thank you so much! Cannot believe the difference!

Anonymous said...

Before you order and hand over your credit card information, I urge you to google customer experiences. This company's practices or nothing more than criminal. And if you research, you will find that ordering this on Amazon provides you no more protection than ordering direct from Sheer Cover as I did. Please read on:

In July 2013, I ordered a "special" from a TV advertisement for the Sheer Cover product.At no point in the checkout process did I notice any commitment to buying additional product.

If it was there, it was not conveyed in an obvious way or otherwise I would never have committed to buy the product in the first place. I received the product in a timely manner. The product is fine - not great - I was satisfied but not impressed enough to continue use. On October 14th, approximately 3 months after my original purchase, my credit card was charged another $43.94 by Sheer Cover.

I called Customer Service and was advised that I committed to this at the time of original purchase and I should have noticed because it was 'bolded' somewhere in print. I advised the representative that I no longer wished to receive the product and please cancel that order and credit my card. He advised me that the order was in process and could not cancel. I said, fine then please cancel any future orders.

I received a cancellation notice advising me that my order had been cancelled but I still owed another $131.82 (so 3 additional payment of $43.94). So BUYER BEWARE your $29.99 "special" is far more than that and will cost you at a minimum around $200.00. It will be far more than that if you are not diligent in checking your credit card and notice the charges immediately so you can cancel future "commitments". This company should be investigated - I am certain that my experience is not unique.

And worth mentioning that I have yet to receive any additional product and so far have paid an additional $87.88 to Sheer Cover (and still have a balance due of another $87.88).If Sheer Cover makers are so confident in their product, they should not have to engage in such deceptive practices - they are nothing better than common thieves.