Paypoint reviews and complaints

Pointpay took £29.79 out of my bank account for subscribing to their "VIP supscription". At the time I did, the site said they would only take 50p from my account for the P&P of a free razor that they were offering. I tried unsubscribing the next day, as I did not want the membership and never used it, but the unsubscription page never seems to be available. It always took me to a page that said "unvalid page". So, I wrote to them, asking them to unsubscribe me. They never replied and I thought the matter was settled. But then they took almost £30 out of my account. I have complained with them and below is the communication I had with them: Interestingly enough, the status of my subscription, as you can see below, is "Unsubscribed":

Refund of funds

SupportID: #11876

Ticket Type: VIP subscription

User ID: Not-Provided

Ticket Status: Open

Ticket Raised By: Lajla Blake
8 november 2012 at 16:42...
Hi,

You have taken £29.79 out from my account on the 5th of November for "VIP subscription" on Pointblog, which I never authorised. I gave my card details to get a free razor and Pointblog said I only had to pay £1.00 for it. It was NEVER said that they would be charging me for some "VIP subscription" that I never wanted in the first place. I have tried to contact them about getting a refund, but the only answer I got was that they had nothing to do with money issues and pointed me to Pointpay, i.e. you.

I have been in touch with my bank and they have blocked any further withdrawals from my account. I have told them not to put you on their list of scammers just yet, because I wanted to contact you first and get a refund for the unauthorised withdrawal that you made.

I would appreciate it if you would refund me the money by Monday, otherwise I will be forced to report you to my bank and they will put your company on the black list, which means that they will be warning all customers and relating banks about your company. I will also report you to every scam control agency and will, if necessary, take legal action against your company if the money is not returned to my account by Monday.

This is the most expensive razor I have ever "bought", costing me over £30.

I do hope that you will do the right thing and reimburse me, because I never wanted the VIP subscription and have never used any of PointBlog's services, apart from authorising the withdrawal of £1 for a "free" razor.

I am eagerly waiting for your reply.

Kind regards,

Lajla Blake

8 november 2012 at 17:38...
We have registered the following information regarding your VIP subscription at pointblog.co.uk.

Status for subscription number #415313:
The subscription is Unsubscribed ()

Payment number Period from Period to Price Paid on
5333168 11-01-2012 12-01-2012 29, 00 £ 11-01-2012
5333167 10-18-2012 11-01-2012 0, 10 £ 10-18-2012
How did I get subscribed to PointBlog VIP?
On the Thursday the 18. October 2012 at 17:38 you have subscribed to our campaign VIP Gold subscription 14 days + 16 Gb USB stick

Your ordering process: (Click on the sigle step to see it in full size)
Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4
I do not think I have ordered any VIP subscription
When you used our introduction offer, you at the same time said yes to get a VIP subscription at PointBlog.co.uk. It is important for us to inform our customers about what it is they subscribe to. We have therefore several times throughout the order progress informed that it is a subscription:

We inform about it in the terms you have accpeted on page 1 in the order process. You can not continue with your order unless you have accepted the terms.
To be completely sure of that you are aware of that it is a subscription, we have on page 2 in the ordering process, very clearly informed you that it is an ongoing subscription.

How du I unsubscribe my VIP subscription?
If you wish to unsubscribe from you VIP subscription at PointBlog.co.uk, it can happen via our VIP selfservicesite.

To be able to use the selfservicesite you have to be logged into your blog.
You can log in with the e-mail address you stated upon ordering and the password you have been informed about during the ordering process.
Have you forgot your password you can have it send by clicking here
I have not received the included gift
To receive your gift, you have to, as we have informed you about in the terms for usage of the campaign, which you have accepted on page 1, send in a validation to receive the included gift. This happens to ensure that the same person does not use our introduction offer more than once.
Sending in validation can happen via the validation link which we send to you on an earlier time on e-mail. If you have lost this link, you can gain access to the validation site by clicking here
It is not me who has ordered
If the payment for this VIP subscription has been withdrawn from your bank account, the order has been made an paid with a payment card which is attached to your bank account. Check if somebody in your family has used your credit card to make the order with. If this is not the case, we recommend that you contact your bank at once and get your payment card closed. They can also help you to get the money back. At the same time remember to unsubscribe this VIP subscription to avoid further withdrawals.
I have not received my receipt
We have send the following e-mails to you. If you, against expectation, have not received on or more of them, it can amoungst other things be caused by blocking of your spam filter. In this case please check if your ESP and/or your spam filer allows e-mails from pointpay.biz. You can at any time see a copy of previous receipts, by clicking on "See e-mail" beside the e-mail in question on the list below.
Subject Send
Welcome to PointBlog.co.uk! 10-18-2012 View email
Receipt for usage of USB Memory Stick campaign 10-18-2012 View email
Regarding your order at PointBlog.co.uk 10-18-2012 View email
Receipt for purchase of VIP membership at pointblog.co.uk 11-01-2012 View email
Can I regret my purchase?
If you have not started using your VIP subscription, you can within the first 14 days use the statutory law of 14 days of regret.
As it at the current time has been more than 14 work days from the ordering point, you are sadly not able to regret your purchase.

Kind Regards

Katie Williams,
Customer Support

PointPay.biz,
Skibbrogade 3, 3. sal,
9000 Aalborg, Denmark

8 november 2012 at 18:40...
I have written to you a couple of days after I subscribed to receive the ordered item, but you chose to ignore that. I wrote to you because there is no way I was going to call Denmark. Also, your so-called validation requests "a copy of your health insurance card or drivers license", by which you would be getting all of my personal information to help your scam even further.

My bank has clearly stated that I am in NO WAY to provide such information to anybody, as it could result in identity theft.

Also, in the email, it states this:

"PointBlog.co.uk is one of the biggest blogging sites in Europe online, where you can share and discuss your thoughts and opinions with more than 118000 other bloggers. As an active blogger at PointBlog.co.uk, you earn points both by blogging and by commenting on other peoples blog posts. These points can be used to shop for at www.pointshop.co.uk, where you can choose between circa 50, 000 different products.

You will in the future, periodically, receive our newsletter, in where you can read about current subjects.

You can always unsubscribe again by using the link you will find in all newsletters and in this welcome e-mail."

There is never any mention of a VIP subscription, until I received your bill for it. At that point I wrote to you several times asking to cancel my subscription immediately and not to withdraw the funds from mt bank account. You chose to ignore this repeatedly.

And the unsubscribe link that you had provided turned up with a page that did not work, coming up with the following:

"Sorry, we couldn't find the page you are looking for. This might be due to one of the following reasons:

You have used an old link.
We have moved or removed the page.
The URL/address for this page is incorrect
You like error pages ;)

I am afraid you leave me no choice but to report you to the banks, Ripp off Britain, BBC Watchdog and several other agencies who will take action against you.

I will also raise a claim with the relevant courts.

I am prepared to wait until Monday to get my money back from you and then I will take appropriate actions.

I think you should consider the fact that you will lose a whole lot more than just the £29.79 that you owe me back.

L. Blake

10 november 2012 at 14:50...
Hi,

Back then you took advantage of this promotion you got a 14-day trial of our VIP membership at a greatly reduced price. It also stated that if you do not unsubscribe from the membership within those 14 days you would switch to a fixed continuous subscription and pay the full price VIP membership. Since you have not done this, that is the reason why these withdrawals have taken place.

In relation to returning the payments received, our business policy that all users can cancel their purchase and get their money back as long as it occurs within the 14-day cancellation right, guaranteed by law. If you forget to unsubscribe, well then it is your own responsibility. Just as it is in the case of all other types of subscription services.

Based on the above, unfortunately we can not refund your money because you did not terminate your subscription in time.

Kind Regards

Katie Williams,
Customer Support

PointPay.biz,
Skibbrogade 3, 3. sal,
9000 Aalborg, Denmark

11 november 2012 at 14:16...
I did try to unsubscribe the very next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, but your unsubscription website chooses not to open the right page. So, I Googled your company and I found a lot of people complaining about the same thing. I sure as hell wasn't going to call Denmark to unsubscribe, so I wrote to you to please unsubscribe me. I never got a response and since I never again logged in, I thought that was settled. I did not FORGET to unsubscribe, YOU would not let me unsubscribe!

Even the links to your "tickets" in the emails you send do not work! So people have to go to your site to see responses to their questions.

I am hereby launching a campaign against your scamming company and thieves that run it, as well as joining other campaigns that will expose you.

Have a nice day.

please be aware that paypoint are the worst UK Merchant in the UK. I run several businesses and have working relationships with streamline, barclays and LTSB. As once of the businesses is web based I used an industry 'specialist' known as paypoint who advised me a swift 48 hour sign up. It took over two months to set up, and the settlements are never as they should be- but this I can live with.
Here is the best bit, any complaint you make, via email, phone or via recorded letter - THEY WILL NEVER REPLY.

I have written to the financial ombudsman regarding them and hopefully they will be heavily fined as they have cost me and my business a lot of money. They send through wrongful debit notices, yet when you compalint all they say is 'we'll notify BS Card services and come back to you' which the NEVER DO.

I WONDER IF BS CARD SERVICES ARE AWARE OF THE DAMAGE PAYPOINT OR PAYPOINT.NET ARE HAVING ON THEIR BUSINESS!