Complaint Review: Reportlinker - Internet

How very unusual! another unhappy user !?

Reportlinker  is making a fortune out of naive users falling into their carefully designed trap.

Any decent business, such as AT&T, Amazon, linkedIN, Kaspersky, Netflix etc. will ALWAYS send, at least, a monthly notification to remind their premium users of their next coming payments.

Unlike Reportlinker, honest companies also state very CLEARLY, at the various stages of the online buying process, their terms and conditions, especially if they involve auto-renewal billing clauses.

I got tricked by these guys myself a couple of years ago. Something similar happened to me. I bought a one month access to their pretty much useless report linking search engine but they secretly and SLYLY set up an UNAUTHORISED monthly payment order against my credit card.

Unfortunately, I made the purchase with a card I hardly ever used at the time and I did not notice that I was being charged 89 USD per month during 20 months (almost 18 hundred bucks). As soon as I realised, I asked my bank to stop the abuse, otherwise it would have continued for ever.

I tried to talk to them on the phone many times but they refused to call me back. They would only communicate in writing, no wonder why.

Some guy called Fiorelo (I just found his email address in my inbox [email protected] ), who did not seem to read my messages or perhaps chose not to understand them, responded exactly the same thing twice,  using exactly the same words in the same order. He referred to their T&C’s and refused any form of refund. Not only was his message a copy and paste one but I also reckon he was using the google translate tool, as it was written in very bad English.  He was RUDE. It was PATHETIC and so frustrating!

I even signed up again and carefully followed all the steps to make sure it had not been my oversight. NOWHERE, apart from on the terms and conditions page, which was almost impossible to find, was it explained that I was authorising an ongoing auto-renewable subscription. 

I have just looked at their website and noticed it is ever so slightly clearer now. At least they make you accept the T&C’s beforehand. 

My ex-boss, had exactly the same problem with Reportlinker a year before I subscribed. The difference was that she paid with a company card. She used the service for a day or two but kept paying for 10 months of so, until someone from the accounts department noticed the recurring payment and questioned it.

Unfortunately, I only found out about my bosses experience after being scammed myself.

At the time, I considered taking legal action against them but I thought it would be pretty much fruitless and expensive, considering they are based in Europe and that they seem to be perfectly aware and happy about their UNFAIR business practice. These guys are professionals. They know very well what they are doing.

One of the problems is that the lines of the online trade legal framework are blurry to say the least, so what they do is probably even “legalish” in some countries.

Of course Reportlinker knows very well that nobody in my situation would bother taking action, as hiring the services of an international lawyer in America would cost me way more than the 1800 dollars they took from me. I guess a lot of their clients, like my boss, use their company cards to pay for these type of service, which makes it ever easier for Reportlinker to get away with the scam. Can you imagine how much money these guys have been making over the years? If you look at other similar complaints, they go back to 2009! 

My ex-boss did recover part of her money by making a chargeback claim. Her claim was initially rejected but she insisted a couple of times and eventually received a refund. Sadly, it was too late for me to make a claim when I came to know about it.

If everybody reported this type of abuse, authorities would finally crack down on this kind of fraudulent activity.

Good luck!