I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on websites.

My advice re: the "restocking fee agreement": ignore it. File under "Meaningless contracts of adhesion designed for people with no legal knowledge", along with the old standby's, "Management Reserves All Rights" and "Not responsible for loss or damage".

The only thing less enforceable than a lengthy one-sided contract written carefully by a lawyer, is a short one-sided contract written hastily by an amateur in a panic. :-)

Any business that relies on credit card payments cannot afford to screw their customers without just cause. If they don't have evidence to fight your chargeback demand, Visa will nail their coffin shut. Complaints and chargebacks stir merchant banks into a feeding frenzy; they'll double the merchant fee and/or stop allowing a business to accept credit cards! Dot coms are especially vulnerable to this.

that's it guys, these folks are generous, it gets exploited unfairly and they act to correct it(which is what all the rationalizers have said they would do), now nail 'em to the cross cuz they're such unfair b******s! You want unfair?

Look in the mirror.

Wormwood I have to disagree with your take. They didn't offer this promotion out of the goodness of their hearts or because, as you say, they were generous. It was an incentive to alter peoples behaviour so that they could make money, pure and simple and perfectly in keeping with the traditions of enterprise of this great country. They are a business, they are not a person trying to be nice to unknown goldpoints members (or maybe you know something that I don't?).

I'm just curious, if I buy $100 worth of mags am I abusing them? What if I buy 10K worth? 100K worth? At what $point do you feel that the promotion is being abused?

I also think that given that both goldpoints and valuemags have so far only shown themselves to be willing to treat their customers fairly they deserve the benefit of the doubt(actually there isn't much doubt in my mind that I am going to eventually get the points I am due based on my communications with both companies to date). Perhaps postings regarding possible recourse should they not continue in this vein are premature.

It would be interesting to get goldpoints on one of the FT chats to talk about their program and at the same time to find out the real deal behind this promotion and who, if anyone, is getting taken advantage of.Certainly doesn't seem as though valuemags was complaining.


[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 12-28-2001).]

Valuemags did not create this promotion out of the kindness of their hearts -- they did it to promote their business. I assume they had an agreement to buy points from GoldPoints for a fixed price. If that price is less than the profit they are making from selling subscriptions, they are making a lot of money on the deal. If it is more, they took a stupid gamble and, I imagine, they lost big.

They advertised that people who bought magazines before 12/31/01 would receive 450 points per dollar spent, and they expected that people would consider this when choosing to give them their custom.

IMHO, if they don't credit ALL the people who bought magazines with the 450 points per dollar, as advertised, they are commiting fraud.

Especially, for anyone who purchased magazines before the promotion was "widthdrawn." They know who ordered what and when. Making people demonstrate that they knew that this promotion was in effect, means, in plain English, that they are stealing from their customers the value of the 300 points per dollar they are failing to credit.

I certainly hope that when the credit shows up for my order, which was placed before the promotion was "widthdrawn" that I am credited with the points that I was promised without them attempting to change their obligations or ammend the agreement after they have accepted my money.

If they want to end the promotion early, or stop accepting orders, O.K. But after they've already accepted the orders?

Okay, maybe this was a loop hole but we only paid the price they were asking. If that price was a loss leader for them, well maybe they did it for publicity and word of mouth advertising, possibly even a volume discount from magazines for such large orders.

Unfortunately, instead of honoring their agreement, they are going to get a lot of negative exposure as a result. I would never have heard of or ordered from valuemag considering the amount of competitive pricing for magazine subscriptions available today.

BTW: I only ordered $300 in magazine subscriptions of which I have returned from Christmas to find out the spam email discussing orders over $400 require written confirmation. What do I tell those who I promised magazines all year next year? Either my order will not go through and 6 weeks from now nobody will get their magazines or if they do, I will only get 150 points per dollar instead?!?

As in all frequent flyer activity, make sure to keep a paper trail in events such as these as rules are subject to change without notice.

------------------
"Fly me to the moon and let me earn alot of miles."

apparently valuemags was overjoyed with the promo

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum.../005900-3.html

read matthewclement, one of the owners of milespy.

Does anyone have the regular (non-800) telephone number to reach a live person at Valuemags?

Thank you.

i just called that number (800) and Shari picked up on the second ring. i never got the cancellation policy email so she is sending it to me. she said the program was ended early by goldpoints and seemed a little disappointed about it.

You know, there has been no indication whatsoever that valumags/Goldpoints, will not credit us with all the points we have coming to us. Yet, many FTs, including myself, have posted all these negative "what if" scenarios. Before I signed the fax regarding the cancellation policy, I sent Valumag an email addressing some concerns. I just received this reply from Shari:


Dear Neal,
I've talked to my boss regarding some of the questions you have. Basically, goldpoints has decided to change their promotion as of 12/26/01 from 450 points per dollar to 150 points per dollar. If you already placed your orders before that date, your goldpoints will be honored. Goldpoints is allowed to take up to 30 days to actually give you your points, even though it only takes them about a week. There is no way that you will NOT be receiving your points, we will make sure you get them, and no one is going belly up with this offer, it has been very successful for us.

Shari


I think since most of us FTs are sophisticated realists, we're worried about the "too good to be true" syndrome. But Shari says it's been a great promotion for them and I have no reason to doubt her. Without knowing how much of the subscription costs they give up, (if any,) and how much the goldpoints cost them, we can't possibly come to a logical conclusion.

For over 20 years, I ran an extremely successful upscale amusement center (or arcade) in the Chicago area. We sold tokens for the games, usually at 4 or 5 for $1.00. On Tuesdays, every single week, we sold 10 for a dollar, which was unheard of at the time. All the amusement industry "experts" said we were nuts. But once every 4 or 5 years on special occasions, we ran a 20 token for a dollar special. As with the valumag promotion, people went nuts, some hording several thousand of them. This offer also seemed too good to be true. But the promotion definitely helped us in ways I won't get into here. Also, I never felt that in buying thousands of tokens, that anyone was "abusing" the offer.

So personally, I'm just going to sit tight and remain cautiously optimistic. I think that as a group, we have plenty of recourse if something were to happen. But in the meantime, worrying will accomplish nothing but to give us ulcers.

Once again, just my two cents worth. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

hello all

first of all, i have received confirmation that valuemags has posted to FT.

i emailed shari asking if she had posted here and she responded "The only thing we posted was signed by Andrew, we don't have any control over the fact that goldpoints dropped the promotion."

so, it wasn't a hoax

neal: again, a thoughtful post http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif i couldn't agree with you more.

cheers
firefly

Does anybody have any idea what this means?

ClubChamp, I'm afraid "researching your order" doesn't mean much. I'm still waiting for points from a 12/3 $225 order to post. On 12/18 I called Goldpoints, who told me to fax in my order confirm and they would look into it. On that date Shari at Valuemags said she also would resubmit my order to Goldpoints.

Neither of these actions worked. On subsequent calls to Goldpoints I was told I would have to wait until 1/3, 30 days from my order, before they would look into it further. I'm afraid I'm going to get screwed here. Everyone has been very nice and said they will help me resolve this, but I haven't seen any results.

I'm tempted to just say forget it and cancel the order with Valuemags while I still can.

BTW, points from my mid-December $100 order posted within 2 days, but points from my 12/25 $100 order have not posted yet. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

What part of "Please note that the awarding of points for merchandise ordered from an online retailer, via the Gold Points Web site, will take place within 30 business days." are people not understanding?

If Goldpoints have been inundated by the success of the valuemags promotion, people faxing and calling to try and expedite the posting of their points (essentially jumping infront of others in line) and acting like a bunch of nervous nellies is not going to help the situation or increase the likelihood of future promotions happening(maybe it was all the calls and faxes that caused the promo to end early rather than the order volume?). If it takes the full 30 days so be it, it is still a great deal. Some of us need to start acting like the sophisticated FT'ers that we are and get a grip on our anxiety http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif


[This message has been edited by Mvic (edited 12-28-2001).]

mvic: i agree with you that what you said may be the reason for why goldpoints pulled the promo. they WERE getting numerous calls about people trying to get their points posted prior to the initial 30 day period. i spoke with a CSR and she told me that all CSRs were sent an email. "given the recent success of the valuemags promotion and a very large increase in calls to our center, please inform customers that points will post within 30 days."

it is my opinion that it was everyone calling them that caused goldpoints to pull the offer early.


now, i just wish there a way to see how well/poorly valuemags/goldpoints made out during this promo.