Shame on Yahoo! for partnering with these crooks.
I wanted to buy the game Boggle! on Yahoo! and their page said I could buy it for $19.95 or I could buy a monthly subscription for 9.95 (minimum two months) and get a game a month.
I took the second option, in essence getting two games for the price of one.
But when I went to cancel, Yahoo! said I had to contact their "partner" Oberon-Media. Oberon-Media gives no cancellation information on their "help" page and replied to a request for cancellation by saying that if I wanted to pay full price for the second game they would cancel my subscription. I e-mailed them back directly and said that was not the terms of my original agreement (I kept the letter) and got no response. A Google search shows that many others at different game sites have received the same "refuse to let you cancel" non-service in conjunction with stone-walling and non-responses.
A crooked outfit is a crooked outfit, and that's fine, I have to go through my credit card company I assume to stop charges. What steams me is Yahoo! lending their names to this outfit. I'm sure I'm not the only one who didn't do due diligence on Oberon-Media because he figured Yahoo! wouldn't host them on their site if they were not legit.
****************************************************************************
**See comments for a response from Oberon-Media.
7 comments:
I had a similar bad buisness practice at Yahoo!experience. I had a couple of domain names registered there. I got a note saying the cost of keeping them there was going up to $34.95 per year(vs. $9.99 in the past). I move the domains well before the renewal date. Got confirmation that the transfer was done. Then two months later I get a charge on my credit card. I go to look why and find that just because you transfer the domain to another service does not mean that you cancel the domain name registration service at Yahoo! Yahoo! is arguing that it is okay to charge $34.95 for a domain registration service for a domain they do not register! This is unethical as most people just cannot figure out how to get their money back. I am considering talking to a class action attorney!
Dan
Two days after posting this, I got an e-mail from Oberon-Media saying that my subscription had been canceled, as I had fulfilled my agreement. I also received a call from a service representative of Oberon-Media saying they had flagged my post and were working to resolve the issue. I agreed to forward them the e-mails I received claiming I had to buy another game at full price before I could cancel.
They offered me a free game as an apology/show of good faith, but I declined. It was a nice offer, though.
Glad it worked for you. Just to let you know, I recently tried to cancel and met tonnes of roadblocks. Received a couple form letters that sent me to the same sites that do not work or are down. Then, not a word from them. So, my only option was to cancel my credit card, which is a lousy thing to have to do. So, they were somewhat "honest" with you, but in reality are still burnin' mighty crook fires :0)
ZoeDee, I kept the direct e-mail address of the woman who contacted me from Oberon after I posted this blog--if you send me your e-mail address, I'll gladly forward you her e-mail so that you can contact their conflict resolution specialist directly. I ended up canceling my credit card anyway, just to be sure, but once I posted this, its amazing how fast someone from Oberon contacted me and said, "What seems to be the problem and how can we fix it?"
They also asked me to take this down after they sent me confirmation of cancellation, but I suspected there may be others (like you) who would have the same problem and may not have their own blogs to raise a stink on.
Beware! I've tried 9 times since May 1 to contact these companies from both sites, and I've gotten no response from Oberon-Media and lame answers from Yahoo. What it boils down to, is that I purchased a game, installed it, it crashes in the same spot each time, re-downloaded from link they sent, re-installed, ran DXDiag with no issues found, and still the problem remains. I did the same process 4 times then gave up. They won't honor my request for a refund, and now emails are bouncing back from Oberon with an 'OUT OF OFFICE" response in the subject line.
THIS COMPANY WILL NOT RESPOND AND I'M STILL OUT $19.99 FOR A GAME THAT WON'T RUN (FAULTY PROGRAMMING).
Any ideas of where to turn next for a refund?
Thanks for any help in advance.
Beware! I've tried 9 times since May 1 to contact these companies from both sites, and I've gotten no response from Oberon-Media and lame answers from Yahoo. What it boils down to, is that I purchased a game, installed it, it crashes in the same spot each time, re-downloaded from link they sent, re-installed, ran DXDiag with no issues found, and still the problem remains. I did the same process 4 times then gave up. They won't honor my request for a refund, and now emails are bouncing back from Oberon with an 'OUT OF OFFICE" response in the subject line.
THIS COMPANY WILL NOT RESPOND AND I'M STILL OUT $19.99 FOR A GAME THAT WON'T RUN (FAULTY PROGRAMMING).
Any ideas of where to turn next for a refund?
Thanks for any help in advance.
Anon-
If you send me an e-mail at kenmorefieldATgmail.com, I'll forward you the direct address of the customer service rep from Oberon who sent me cancellation confirmation and offered me a free game for my trouble (I declined).
Ken
Post a Comment