NeedTooKnow.org

Buyer Beware!

As of late these two words have never been more relative in my life than they have ever before. I normally consider myself pretty savvy and have a certain amount of street smarts, normally I can see a scam coming a mile away but recently I was snagged in by one of the oldest tricks in the book. Our country is undergoing a financial strain like no other since the depression. It is affecting just about everyone except maybe the super-rich. At a time like this we are all at our weakest, and just as in any society there will be those who will use that weakness to exploit others.

A few weeks ago a relative of mine dropped by very happy about having heard something on the radio about being able to get $1000 voucher for groceries as part of the economic stimulus plan. Now normally I would ignore claims like this but she was so sure and claimed that she received her voucher already and was in the midst of using her voucher. So she passed on the phone number for me to call and also gave it to my mother and we both called individually and signed up. We both spoke to a customer service agent from a company called Grocery Relief who said that they were helping low to middle income families affected by the economic downturn to help get groceries from major manufactures. So they asked a few personal questions about my income and how much I spent on groceries in a 1 month period. After a few seconds the gentleman was happy to report that I fall within their guidelines and would be eligible for the $1000 voucher. He took my mailing address and all the pertinent information. Then the very last thing he asked me for set off some alarm bells but not enough to totally freak me out. He informed me there was a fee of $4.90 for application processing and if I preferred for rush processing I could pay $9.90. So of course I asked why this was required he told me that it’s how the company was able to offer this information to the public and how they paid for the radio and newspaper advertisements. I thought this was a little odd but not completely without merit. Looking back I don’t know what I was thinking. Anyway I gave him my information. I was assured I would receive a voucher in the mail after a few days.

After a few minutes of what I can’t describe any more plainer than buyer’s remorse I decided to get online and do a little research about this Grocery Relief program surely if this was something legit there would be feedback on the web with people all praising this whole package. So I Googled Grocery Relief and found nothing but bad news, including two news articles that included a woman from Greenville, South Carolina who had got taken for $709.00 over a few months’ time by random charges being added to her credit card without her permission. Another article also talked about smaller multiple charges added to their card account. After some further research and a phone call to the BBB I discovered what Grocery Relief is doing isn’t exactly illegal but it’s sort of a coupon club. You pay a certain amount to join the club and every time you order coupons they charge you a smaller amount for the coupons. It’s sort of like having a Costco membership. You pay once to be in the club and you pay for your individual purchases but those purchases are supposed to save you money in the end. The scary part however is the fact that they now have all your information including credit card number, address, personal information about your income, and even some extent your spending habits.

So what happens now, well I contacted my bank and they have put things into place to make sure no other charges can come thru from this company and they have also charged back the initial $9.90 from the original charge. So right now I am ok, but if this company decided to sell my information or in some way try to exact some revenge I could be in for a long time battle. So this is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. I am sharing it publically so that maybe others won’t make the same mistakes I made and will learn when something doesn’t sound quite right immediately put your foot on the breaks and bail out right away.

Just something we all need too know!

UPDATE:

Since I wrote this story I have been doing more investigation.  The website www.groceryrelief.com which last week didn’t work now has an under construction message and password protection. This happened a day after I looked up who owned the URL and made a call or two. So someone is behind this program and they are trying to cover their tracks to make themselves look a little more legitimate.

The official whois record is below:

Whois Server Version 2.0

Domain names in the .com and .net domains can now be registered
with many different competing registrars. Go to http://www.internic.net
for detailed information.

   Domain Name: GROCERYRELIEF.COM
   Registrar: NETFIRMS, INC.
   Whois Server: whois.netfirms.com
   Referral URL: http://www.netfirms.com
   Name Server: NS665.HOSTGATOR.COM
   Name Server: NS666.HOSTGATOR.COM
   Status: clientDeleteProhibited
   Status: clientTransferProhibited
   Status: clientUpdateProhibited
   Updated Date: 19-jul-2009
   Creation Date: 18-jun-2008
   Expiration Date: 18-jun-2010

Netfirms.com is a website registration site that is masking the true identity of who actually owns www.groceryrelief.com  and of course www.groceryrelief.org is a simple advertising landing page designed to generate income when you click on any of the links on that page. This whole organizations stinks of scam and I have yet to fine anyone who has offered any information to the contrary. So once again Buyer Beware!