fraud warning

Hi I have a warning for everyone and please pass it on to others.

I ordered some of those space saving bags from a company I saw on TV but I did the order on line. Their name is "(removed by admin) (removed by admin) and the web address is (removed by admin) When placing my order on line I made sure I had ticked all the boxes that indicated I did not want to be contacted by anyone else and that my details were not to be passed on to other companies.

My bags arrived after a few days and a week later I had a phone call saying it was space systems checking I was happy with my purchase. I made it clear to the man who rang I was not interested in any other products or services, he insisted he would be putting me down for a 28 day free trial of a discount club to do with the bags. At no point did he say this was anything to do with a company which claims to arrange holidays OR that I would be charged £99.99 after 30 days.

Yesterday I received a very glossy booklet and a letter that stated I had joined a company called Free Time and that £99.99 was going to be taken from my card account their phone number is 08444412898 they claim their address is in Spain. The letter says if you want to book any holiday with them or to cancel your membership phone that number, guess what I tried for nearly 30 mins on 3 occasions to get an answer but no one answered. I did a web search on the phone number to find it had been reported by people some who got a booklet and letter and some who only noticed an extra charge on their bank records.One of the reports was from an ex employee who blew the whistle saying the company is linked to space systems who pass your records and bank details on to this company and that they are not located in Spain but Barnstaple and I think they are also in th e same place as space systems.

After not getting any answer at Free Time I rang (removed by admin) and to say I lost my temper with them would be an understatement. They admitted they were linked with Free Time so I said they had an hour to contact this company and remove me from their records. They rang back with in 20 mins and still thought they hadn’t done anything wrong.

I have stopped my card and notified trading standards,Action Fraud,ICO and the police and thought I should get this information out to others.So I am sorry about the long post but please beware of this company as today I have had a mountain of strange post drop through the door.Sue

Sorry to hear of your experience Sue- but this site can’t afford a legal team…

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Stewart (admin)

Thanks for the warning Stellabean and sorry to hear it has caused you this trouble.

xx

sorry stuart I was trying to stop other people being ripped off by this company

Thanks for the warning Sue. I am very wary of this sort of stuff. Hope you don’t get any more trrouble.

Shazzie xx

Thankfully you,re one of the people who is switched on and could see that this was a scam and have managed to sort this out for your self, if this had been an older person they who didn,t know what to do then they would have got away with this.

Its so hard today to not get caught out no matter haw carefull we are thanks for the warning, take care.

Barbara.xx

Sue, Thanks for the warning - and sorry you have been duped. We must all be on the alert as it is so easy for these scoundrels to cheat us out of our money.

Hope the police get pro-active and ‘sort’ them out.

Thanks everyone my new bank card arrived today but it has been a lot of trouble cancelling things and contacting the electric, water,council tax etc. I will be going to police station this week when we know they will be there it isn’t staffed full time.I have to send a letter to the company and wait for their reply then get back in touch with ICO with the response. Sue