19 Mar 08 Robbed Also
I signed up for a year’s service in March of ‘07 with Gisol for $73 per year. My website was disabled in November of ‘07 and when I called, I didn’t realize that I already had paid for service through March, but I was told that my account had expired and my credit card was expired. I gave them my updated credit card information, signed the “terms of service” contract. I then had the same experience as most of you and was suppossedly upgraded to the “umlimited” package and charged 1,798.20 to my Discover card after clearly being told that I would be charged less than what I was paying now. I disputed with my credit card and Gisol sent them a bunch of fraudulent documentation. The kicker was that they took my signature from the “terms of service” agreement and cut and paste it into a receipt document saying that I authorized them to charge 1,798.20. The signatures clearly look exactly the same. They didn’t even bother to change the time-stamp indicating that I had signed both documents at the exact same second! I sent a well-documented package to Discover clearly detailing this fact, citing web pages that show how Gisol has done this to others, copies of a few testimonies similar to mine and copies of my BBB and IC3 complaints. I recieved word back that I provided no new information, this was a “he said, she said” dispute and they always rule in favor of the merchant in these cases. They suggested I take legal avenues to get my money back. They said they don’t have a fraud department, just a dispute department, and this department seems to be a total joke. If any of you have Discover, get rid of them. They clearly don’t stand up for their customers, citing, “The merchant is our customer too.” Go with proven companies such as American Express who stand up for their customers. It’s funny that even the Discover card agent told me that American Express was the only company that made a “legal” decision based on evidence you provide. That’s clearly not true based on others who had cards with Visa, MC and even small banks that had chargebacks that were upheld. I will be contacting California’s Attorney General’s office but I’m not very hopeful. I received some advice from Caveat to continue trying with Discover, but everytime I’ve spoken to them, I’ve gotten the same runaround. I guess those are my only options left. Anybody have any other ideas?
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If I were you Edge, I would be getting in contact with Discover again, and ask to speak to someone more senior. For a credit card company or bank to say they haven’t got a fraud dept is absolutely rediculous. They have to have one! The merchant is NOT their customer. Sure, they get a % of the amount which comes from the merchant, but YOU are their customer. They make most of their money from interest from you. You would have used their card services again and again. How many transactions would they get with Gisol? And anyway, if you couldn’t have done business with Gisol, you would have gone to another host. It doesn’t make sense at all. If you don’t get any luck from contacting someone else more senior, get the head honcho or CEO of Discover’s name, and send a letter and/or email marked “Private and Confidential” addressed to him/her by name detailing your case and your dissapointment in their company. This often gets thing rolling very quickly. It’s a well known technique.
FYI… Discover Contacts:
CEO - David W. Nelms
Discover Financial Services
2500 Lake Cook Road
Deerfield, IL 60015
Phone Number (Correct as of Sep/2006?): 224-405-0900
Chief Financial Officer - Roy A. Guthrie
Mike.