Well, I just have
to post something here
to help relieve my frustrations. I am hardly a noob, I've been on the net since '93 or '94, had my own .com website for a while, etc. I fell for the scam less than two weeks ago because I was googling for public domain music and found allcoolmusic.com. (Appears at the top, one of Google’s paid advertisers) By this time I had been searching for PD music for an hour or so and wasn’t finding anything worthwhile, so I decided
to take a chance on this site. I thought that what I was paying for would access
to a web site that would have a huge collection of music that is considered in the public domain and thus that I could use in my video projects without worry of copyright infringement. So I give my CC# and get a link
to download the software (at this point I'm thinking, why am I downloading software when I thought I was getting access
to a site) and after installing it I find I have just paid for Limewire, only it's called mp3rocket. Besides looking EXACTLY like Limewire beyond the name mp3rocket on the top, it used the same preferences I already have set for Limewire and it resumed downloads I had started with Limewire. Well, in the allcoolmusic.com FAQ page (
http://www.musicinc.cc/eng/help_faqs.php) membership/account question number 4 of 5 states “QUESTION: How do I cancel my membership? EXPLANATION: If for some reason you are not satisfied with your membership, you can cancel at any time with no further obligation. Send a note
to customer service and your account will be cancelled within 2-3 business days.”
To send a note
to their customer service you do it from within your browser through their website, a fact that I did not realize until I started trying
to find copies of the emails I sent them few days later and realized that I didn’t send them from Thunderbird on my computer. This mattered when I contacted my credit card company and they wanted copies of the emails I sent. When you go
to the page
to sent the email you are now on the
www.musicinc.cc web site, where it states “SUPPORT RESPONSE : Please keep in mind that although we will try our best
to respond
to your inquiry as soon as possible, with thousands of members, at times it could take 12-24 hours before we are able
to respond. We DO appreciate your patience and understanding!” So I waited 48 hours for my first response. Nothing. So I fire off another email explaining that this is the second one I am sending please respond etc. Again, after 48 hours, nothing. This brings me up
to last night. I am really starting
to get ticked off so I check my CC online site and see that the charges are still there, and that I had been charged DOUBLE what they said a lifetime membership cost, and
to make it even worse, I had been charged TWICE! Now I am really getting angry. So I sent my third email
to them, which I had the presence of mind copy and paste into word as well:
Please cancel my account. From your FAQ page:
"I thought the software was free. Why am I being asked
to pay? The software is free. You are paying for unlimited technical support and so we can run the website. If unsatisfied, for any reason, you can cancel your membership within 30 days for a full refund. "
Again, please cancel my account. My card was billed on 12/30/06, and today is 1/10/07. It is well before 30 days you specify for a full refund. This is the third email I have sent you. There are several reasons why I want
to cancel my account:
5) You charged me $49.34 on my credit card when a lifetime membership was listed on your website as “Lifetime Membership $39.95 - Reduced Now Only $24.44 - Best Value!”
6) You charged my card $49.34 twice, back
to back on the same day.
7) This is the third email I have sent you without hearing a reply
to the first two, requesting a refund or
to cancel my account.
8) When I downloaded and installed mp3rocket, I discovered that I had identical software already on my computer; the only difference being it’s called “Limewire”. Mp3rocket even uses the same preferences I already have saved for Limewire, and it resumes downloads that I originally started with Limewire when I start mp3rocket.
I expect a full refund of $98.68
to be credited back
to my card. ($49.34 x 2)
My name is XXXXXXX and that is the name on the credit card that I used
to pay for your services. Thank you.
After sending that email I decided
to see if I could find any more information about this company and type allcoolmusic.com into google and TADA! There are tons of people who have been scammed by this company. That is how I ended up here. After reading a variety of complaints I decided not
to fool around any longer and contacted my CC company
to stop payment on these charges. This was not as easy as it may sound, and I spent a good fifteen minutes explaining
to the rep why I felt like I had been ripped off and what actions I had taken so far. (This was Capital One BTW). The rep had no problem removing the double charged but asked me
to explain several times why I felt that I had been ripped off. I’m not even sure if she had a clue as
to the nature of my complain. In the end she relented and now I’m just waiting
to see if allcoolmusic.com will still come after me and attempt
to collect their money. There should be no way in hell that they have a case, but with a business like this who knows?