Our personal experience

[dave_and_aleks]

We subscribed to the free trial (8 DVDs in 14 days) and then cancelled - at least we thought we had cancelled - found out we got charged £14.99 completely by accident when we were checking our online banking.

So a barrage of e-mails commenced - which goes something like this (in blue from me and in red from them):

20 May - I previously set up a free trial for renting DVDs from you. I cancelled my account and have received a letter from you asking for payment. You have also sent to me three more DVDs after I cancelled my account.

I believe that you are holding £14.99 against my account even when I cancelled my account with you - my bank has confirmed to me today that someone is holding this amount in pending following a card transaction made two days ago and you are the only company that I have given these particular card details to. The card number is for a Visa Electron card and the card number ends in ******.

Therefore, will you please cancel your hold over these funds in my bank account because I believe that I do not owe you anything at all. Until such time as this happens, I am not going to send back the three DVDs that I have received.

Please confirm that this will happen. If I do not hear from you within seven days, I will be taking this matter further.

20 May - Hi,

You were billed on 18 May 2005 as you never attempted to cancel your account until later this day after DVDs were in the process of being dispatched to you.

When we recieve the 3 DVDs back from you your account will then be fully cancelled. Your account is currently 'suspended' as you have 3 DVDs out on rental at the moment.

Regards,
Michael
Customer Service

20 May - The account was cancelled back at the start of May and the three DVDs that were sent back to you (Dawn Of The Dead, Bride and Prejudice, Around The World In 80 Days) were returned to you - according to the details I can see online - on 11 May 2005. Why, if those DVDs were returned, was the account not cancelled because that should have ended my agreement with you? Instead, you have sent me three more DVDs which - if memory serves me correctly - should have been sent out to me as soon as the DVDs returned to you on 11 May were received by you, if my account had not been cancelled?

Again, I ask that you release the hold on the funds you have placed on my account, failing which I will take further action.

20 May - Hi,

As previously stated when we recieve the 3 outstanding DVDs back from you, your account will then be fully cancelled and you will not be billed by us.

Regards,
Michael
Customer Service

21 May - I am replying to this e-mail as I have checked my online banking this morning to find that you have taken a payment of £14.99 on 20 May 2005 from my bank account (I assume you take payments as "The DVD Biz Ltd"). As you stated in your e-mail to me of yesterday, when you receive the 3 outstanding DVDs back from me, my account will be fully cancelled and I will not be billed by you. Can you please explain to me like I am a child why I have been billed?

Incidentally, the DVDs were put in the post to you yesterday evening.

Therefore, please credit the £14.99 back to my account without further delay or I will take this matter up with the Police as this is theft of funds from my bank account. I have cancelled my account and you did not have the authority thereafter to take funds.

23 May - Hi,

You were billed on 18 May 2005 as you never requested to cancel your account until after you were billed on the same day. This was why DVDs were dispatched to you on this day.

All DVDs have to be returned to us to fully cancel your account and to stop your account being billed for another month. Due to this I am unable to refund you the money taken from your account but the only option I can give is to re-activate your account again for 1 month.

Please let us know if you would like us to go ahead and do this.

Regards,
Michael

23 May - I am confident that the request to cancel was made before 18 May 2005. In fact, when the last batch of DVDs were sent back to you on 11 May 2005, that's when I considered the account to be cancelled. I had gone through the screens to cancel my account clicking on various things.

Therefore, because this was done before you took the payment, I should be entitled to a refund. I do not wish to re-activate my account again for another month. Please confirm this will be done by Wednesday 25 May 2005.

23 May - Hi,

I can confirm that you never attempted to cancel your account until 18 May 2005 at 12.22pm

This was after our dispatch had been ran for that day and why more DVDs were dispatched to you.

It is also stated in our Terms and Conditions that trialists who do not wish to become full members must cancel their account towards the end of the free trial which you have not done. This is why you were billed.

Regards,
Michael

23 May - You don't make it easy for your customers to cancel accounts - asking them to click on various screens and asking them if they are sure through about half a dozen screens.

In an attempt to compromise matters, I will agree for the account to be re-activated for a period of one month only, commencing today and ending on 23 June 2005. During this time, I understand that I will be entitled to rent a further 20 DVDs without further charge. I would also like a further 10 rentals free of charge for the time, stress and inconvenience caused.

Please confirm.

23 May - Hi,

I can re-activate your account but it will only be for 20 rentals. I am unable to add any more rentals on to your account. Please let us know of you would like me to go ahead and re-activate your account.

Regards,
Michael

23 May - I am unhappy with the outcome of this situation but you can re-activate my account for the 20 rentals.

23 May - Hi,

Your account is now active again with your next billing date 23 June 2005. Please be sure to cancel your account atleast 1 day before your next billing date and we also suggest obtaining Proof of Posting when returning the last of your DVDs. This will stop any charges occuring if your DVDs arrive late to us.

Regards,
Michael

Now I thought that this was an end to the matter but read on ... (will start a new post)

[dave_and_aleks]

27 May - Regarding the account registered to me under my e-mail address of ********@hotmail.co.uk

I AM LESS THAN IMPRESSED NOW. As can be seen from your e-mail below, sent on 23 May 2005, you said that my account had been reactivated with my next billing date of 23 June 2005. I put more DVDs into my queue, the three DVDs had been returned to you, and I was awaiting the next batch of DVDs to be sent to me.

On logging in again today, the system asked me to verify the level of account I had with you - I clicked on the £14.99 per month option.

Then the system asked me to verify my credit card details, which I did - and now you have taken a further £14.99 payment from me.

Please return this to me WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY and make sure that my account proceeds on the agreed rental period until 23 June 2005 - I have already paid to you £14.99 and I did not expect to have to pay another £14.99 just for verifying my details again. You have until 31 May 2005 to sort this out or I will be reporting the matter further.

27 May - I also note that my rental queue has been emptied and you acknowledged receipt of the last three DVDs on 24 May 2005.

30 May - Hi,

I apologise for the mix-up which has happened here. Your account is active until 27 June 2005 not 23 June 2005 as previously stated. I have passed your request for a refund on to my manager and someone will get back in contact with you regarding your refund over the next few days.

Regards,
Michael

30 May - Thanks for your speedy response - if someone could contact me sooner rather than later, that would be preferable.

2 June - I've checked my online banking today - the amount of £14.99 has now cleared my account - could you please let me know as a matter of urgency when you are going to be able to make the refund?

3 June - Hi,

I forwared your query on to my manager who has told me that an extra 7 days has been added on to your account to deal with the billing problem which you had, taking your next billing date to 4 July 2005.

Regards,
Michael

3 June - That's all very well but will the £14.99 be refunded today - I am NOT paying £29.98 for the period 23 May to 4 July 2005. Either the money is returned to the account or I will contact the Police to report your company for fraud. I have kept a copy of each and every e-mail sent and received to you and it is clear from those e-mails that:

1) You reactivated my account on 23 May in lieu of my first payment of £14.99 (such payment cleared my bank account on 20 May)
2) The three outstanding DVDs were acknowledged as returned to you on 25 May
3) Over the Bank Holiday weekend I logged in to see why the next DVDs had not been sent - my rental queue was empty and the system said that my account was cancelled - asking me to confirm the level of package I wanted and my credit card details.
4) My card was charged with £14.99 again
5) You confirmed that this was an error, that the money would be refunded and that my billing date would be 27 June not 23 June.

I look forward to hearing from you as a matter of urgency.

6 June - I am still waiting to hear from you with a reply to my e-mail of 3 June 2005 timed at 9.03am - I am very disappointed with this. Could you please give me your manager's name and a telephone number so that I may speak to them regarding this matter. If I do not hear from you within the next couple of hours, I will contact the Police for fraud.

Thank you.

On 7 June, I reported the matter to my local trading standards department - they sent a letter to this company and received no reply - I have sent a "letter before action" threatening County Court proceedings with no reply so far.

I just wish that I had seen this website first or I would have never subscribed with this company in the first place - but thanks to you, I now have their address and telephone number (for what it's worth) and come tomorrow, I will have their registered office address for the County Court proceedings.

[admin]

Only possible suggestion is if you used a credit card have you tried contacting your card company to try and reclaim money.

Hopefully dave_and_aleks and dvd365 can resolve your problem without having to make court proceedings.

[dave_and_aleks]

[kris]

I've been having a similar problem with DVDS365.
I had a trial with them in January and then stayed with them for a month.
At the end of Feb I cancelled and returned the films by the date requested.
It was only a few weeks ago that I realised that they had still been billing me (4 months so far) so I phoned them up straight away only to be told that I still haven't sent a film back to them. Obviously I told them that I'd sent all films back in Feb so he said that he'll pass the case on to his supervisor (who never called back) and that he doubted that I'd get my money refunded.
I've since been in touch with my bank who informed me that because it was a 'Credit Card Purchase' rather than a direct debit or standing order that they couldn't just instantly stop them from taking (stealing) my money.
The back have sent them a letter telling them to stop taking money from my account, but that could take up to 31 days to be processed.
If it was a genuine mistake on my part (which it wasn't) why, when they have my address, phone number and email, have they made no effort to contact me and ask me where their film is. I think we all know what the answer to that is.
They'd rather steal my money.
I've written a letter to the managing director outlining the problem and stating that if I don't hear from them in seven days that I'll be taking them to small claims court.
Avoid them at all costs.

[andym]

Hi guys,

DVDS365 is a complete con. If you check when he's taking payment off your card, you will see it is done at 3am in the morning! I also once received an email reply at that time.

Do we really think his staff work at that time? Or do you think Michael is just an alias?

If you complain, they ask you to send a written letter or send you in circles.

By the way if you log in to check whether they have the DVDs back, they make it awfully easy to 'accidently' re-activate your account.

I'll be making a website about all 10 of their tricks shortly. They're the worst in the biz - AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

You would be AMAZED at what this guy gets up to.

[dave_and_aleks]

According to our local Trading Standards department, there is no company registered at Companies House under the name "The DVD Biz Limited". They are now going to get hold of the Trading Standards department in Edinburgh to see what they know.

As far as we am aware, you cannot call your company "Limited" if you are not a limited company, but we will check with Companies House tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, the rented DVDs are being turned round, three at a time, in about 5 days. No comments by e-mail, no responses to anyone, nothing. Surprised? We're not ... not now.

[admin]

Check companies house website and no company listed as the dvd biz limited.

But you could ask dvds365 for there company Company No as they maybe trading as dvd biz limited but under a different name.

With the company no then there name can be found at companies house

[andym]

They changed the name from The DVDBIZ Ltd to Interactive Digital Entertainment Ltd on the 18th April.

Their Scottish company number is SC249446 and their accounts are overdue.

Neither is their company name on display outside their registered office as required but is it suprising they flout the rules?

They're a bunch of crooks.

[LaZ]

[andym]

Yep, I find that when you've sent 3 discs back and they don't have them, it tends to be a reoccurring theme if you get me

In other words, you're not the crook who's stolen the disks nor are they reasonable, rather some dickhead with £5 million in the bank already thinks he can steal £50 here, £50 there and generally do what he wants as if he is above the law.

[rentalworker]

Did you get your refund?

Well, i'm not a rentalworker anymore, because DVDs365 merged so we all lost our job so consider me exrentalworker