Ziinga.com
Complaint 176092 Details

The date above is the date I last paid any money to them. It was during September that the initial issue came about. I had been offered by a survey website,(producttesting.co.uk) after completing a survey with them, an offer of a £50 Debenhams gift card for the price of £2. I was also offered a digital radio ipod docking station (or some similar item) also for £2. On accepting these offers (seperately from the same producttesting.co.uk) Once I had filled in my details including debit card information it went to Ziinga's (an auction website) which was welcoming me as a new member. It said something about a trial period for what I thought was 14 days. I do not remember seeing anything about further charges.I have to admit that I forgot about it and failed to cancel within what I thought was the trial period. So obviously I was in great shock when I discovered TWO payments of £59.99 had left my bank account a week later. I got on the site that was next to the transaction on my statement www.ask-ziinga.com,and now it says it was for 7 days, although I think they changed it, there was a web chat I had with them where they said it was 7 days. I have this chat saved on my computer. The site says you can cancel your membership by email or filling the form at the bottom of the page. I used email, in which I also asked to claim the 100% refund that is offered to those who cancel without having purchased anything/used any bids or having used using any of the member benefits, because I had not used any of it. I GOT NO REPLY. A week later I got on their site again found the phone number, but it wasn't working so clicked for live chat. Whilst chatting found out that the payments that were taken were part of a binding contract that had to last THREE MONTHS. I would have to pay £35 for each account to be cancelled before that, total £70. On top of that I would not receive the "welcome gifts" (the offers I was originally signing up for) because of cancelling early. This is the really dirty part: I would not get a refund for any of it because the supposed "welcome gifts" count as purchases from the site and mean I have used the service/member benefits rendering the 100% money back guarantee void. I was and still am fuming. I went all round everything to try to fix the problem and actually managed to get hold of them by phone, but in the end I paid the £70 to cancel the accounts so I didn't end up paying £240 over the next two months. Devastating!! I don't know if it will be possible for me to get my money back or any justice, but I can warn people so others don't get into the same sort of trouble. Do not sign up for this site!! The cost of the membership that would allow me to have access to more products than I would probably have wanted to get anyway. And definitely more than I would spend on them.