ComplaintsforFans of Free

• Initial Complaint

  07/11/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  My husband who has dementia, still supervises our joint accounts. Only today did he notice and realize we have been making automatic payments of $19.00 to some bogus company called "Fans of Free" since 2022. Completely wrong. Being on Social Security, this chunk of money is catastrophic for us. When I learned about this huge error on his part, I checked with BBB and learned what a scam it is.Please advise how to go forward with this mess and refund this money to us. I am furious and more than that, very worried about a substantial amount of money we need to survive.Thank you---******** (and ******) *******

• Initial Complaint

  04/08/2024

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Unanswered

  More info

  My account was charged $19.99 per month from June 2/20 through November 2/23 by this company Fans of Free for an membership of which I did not authorize. The company claims that I opted into this membership due to the purchase of 3 cheap bracelets on their site. I was not informed of any details, terms or conditions of this membership, nor was I informed of the cost of it. Apparently there was a month free trial of it, but at no time was any details of this disclosed by the company, which I believe makes this a fraudulent act. I did not notice the charges on my account as it looked like one if my streaming memberships. My credit card company contacted me in December ******************************************* aware of these charges, to which I claimed were fraud and requested they credit back 7 months of these. A couple of months later I found out the bank was unable to credit these back. I have reached out to the company a few weeks ago to request reimbursement, and received their standard email with ticket #****** from ************** that they were going to credit me back in 7-10 business days, but it has now been over 2 weeks and no refund has been made to my account. I see many others have had the same problem with this same company and have been refunded, so I ask for my refund to please be granted and the company held accountable. Id like this case to stay open until I receive my money. Thank you very much.

• Initial Complaint

  09/15/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I don't remember signing up up for this scam however I keep getting charged $19.99. I have tried contacting the company without success. I have tried resetting my password however their website tells me that my email address cannot be found. I want my money back.

  Business response

  09/21/2023

  Hi ******, 

  First of all, I am sorry if you had a difficult time getting in touch with us. As far as I can see in our system, you sent us two emails and we promptly responded to both of them.

  I understand that you don't remember enrolling in the Team LGBTQ membership. For context, this is an optional membership that must be explicitly opted into, and we do send welcome and order confirmation emails. From your 3 orders for physical merchandise, I see that you enrolled in the membership after your third order. After the 30 day free trial expired, your membership renewed. At any time this membership could have been canceled via phone, email, or directly on our website.
  

  At any rate, I see that your membership was already canceled (before I saw this complaint) by our customer service representative. And they also refunded your monthly charge. If you have not received those credits, they should arrive within 3 to 5 more business days. Unfortunately, we cannot refund you for the 3 merchandise orders as those have already been delivered and are well beyond our 30 return policy.

  If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to email us. Have a wonderful day!

  Customer response

  09/22/2023

   
  Complaint: ********
  
  I am rejecting this response because:

  In an email I sent on August, 2023, I was assigned ticket 140364.  I was told that I signed up for it.  I responded back on Aug 31, 2023, 09:47:

  "please cancel" 

  Didn't get an response accept an automated one saying 24 to 48 hours I would get a response. 

  I sent another email on Sep 12, 2023, 20:31:

  "I have no access to this. I don't remember signing up for this at all. In fact when I type ****************** into the box to reset the password. It comes back email address not found. I was just charged $19.99 for something I cannot cancel because of no access to. I demand that it be canceled and $19.99 be returned to my account."

  Didn't get an response accept an automated one saying 24 to 48 hours I would get a response.  

  I have opened up new emails with new ticket numbers with only the automated response no follow up. 

  Because my bank account was charged again on Sep 19th, 2023, I filled a fraud claim.  I told my bank that I didn't remember signing up and still don't.  They are now investigate my claim. If you had canceled the account like I asked for back in August none of this world have happened and you would have been $59.97 richer.  I would have canceled it myself except when I tried to sign on to your website, I first tried my primary email and when I tried to reset the password, I got a message that my email address wasn't found so I tried 8 more email addresses with the same error.  I went back to my primarily email address and got a new message that I have tried to many times. 

  This is now out of my hands as my bank is going back to first charge in June for fraud. And yes it is fraud when an account with any of my email addresses cannot be found.  The only settlement at this point is for you to refund all of the money that you charged my account and to cooperate with my bank.  Because you refused communication with me, I am very much inconvenienced.

  Sincerely,
  
  *************************

  Business response

  09/27/2023

  Hi ******, as far as I can see in our system, you opened 4 tickets and we responded to all of them. And with regard to your membership, we emailed you access to a portal where you can enroll. This was sent to the only email address we have on file for you: ******************

  If you were unable to gain access and manage your membership there, we would have been happy to sort out that issue with you. That being said, it is not a problem that we have ever encountered before.

  At any rate, the customer service representative assigned to your case has already issued you a full refund of all membership charges. He proactively issued a refund for your most recent charge, since you requested to cancel *before* the billing date. But after your latest email on Thursday 9/21, he refunded the previous 3 charges as well.

  I hope you find this resolution satisfactory.

• Initial Complaint

  02/13/2023

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  Last July I purchased a product for ~$6 from Fans of Free. Since then I have received a $19.99 charge on my credit card every month . I have no idea why. I have called Fans of Free twice and not gotten any response. I would like to be re- imbursed for 7 months of these charges/ Aug2022 thru February ***************************************

  Business response

  02/16/2023

  Hi ******, first I just want to say that we were working on your open ticket. We saw that you left us a message over the phone, so we sent you an email last night asking how we could help you. I see this morning you responded to that email and then opened this BBB dispute less than 3 hours later. Our typical response time is 1-2 business days.
  
  Before this morning's response, I do not see any previous tickets under your name or email. Further, I can see that as a part of your initial order for $7.90, you accepted a bonus offer. This one time offer included a reduced price item and a free trial *********** LGBTQ. Team LGBTQ is our digital membership which offers networking opportunities and insider discounts. Once the free trial ended, you were charged the normal fee of $19.99 for continued membership.
  
  The details of this membership are explained on the enrollment page, and are included in a receipt email as well as a welcome email. These emails were successfully delivered (to a different email address than you used to contact us and open this dispute) on 06/01/22 at 8:11am. At any time between then and now, you could have canceled your membership over email, the phone, or directly on our website. And due to the digital nature of the membership, we do not typically offer refunds. However, I have made an exception for your case and issued you a full refund on all charges and canceled your membership effective immediately. You should receive these credits within 3-5 business days and you will not be charged again. I hope that resolution is satisfactory! If you have any further questions, you can always contact us at ********************************

  Customer response

  02/16/2023

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  ***************************

• Initial Complaint

  11/15/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  A business called CALLING FANS @ callingfans.com is allowing somebody to impersonate me by using my legal name, user name , and my personal photos to sell ****** via pictures and videos which is literally a CRIME. I need assistance on getting this profile done because this is illegal and I have contacted the establishment. I want this page to be removed or else they will have to see me in court as this is literally a crime. The link to the profile is BELOW.

  Business response

  11/22/2022

  Hi there,

  I am very sorry to hear about the situation you are facing! Unfortunately, it looks like you have contacted the wrong business. We do not represent callingfans.com -- we are fansoffree.com and we sell physical merchandise for the **** community.

  I wish you the best of luck in resolving your problem.

  Best,

  ********

• Initial Complaint

  10/18/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Delivery Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I purchased two items from fans of free 9/22/22. When my order was confirmed it was confirmed with the wrong address. I immediately called them only to get some message center. I have emailed them at least 15 times telling them this was sent to the wrong address. They keep sending it to the same address. No one has called me. No one has read my emails because you keep saying you shipped it to ******, ** . I do not live in ******, ** I live in ****************, ** I have sent many emails. At this point just cancel the order and send me my money back. or deliver my goods to the correct address.

  Business response

  11/01/2022

  Hi ******,

  I am sorry for all of the confusion around this order. It has been quite an ordeal for both you and us. Allow me to clear up a few things.

  1) You placed an order via our ******** shop with the wrong address.

  2) You contacted us that the order was incorrect by replying to the "Shipment Confirmation" email. As this name implies, this is the email sent AFTER the order has already been shipped.

  3) Even though we could not intercept the package, we offered to re-ship your order (at our cost). We actually made an exception to our policy here as a show of good faith.

  4) You proceeded to contact us in a flurry of emails, ******** messages, phone calls and more. This resulted in more than 25 open tickets in our database. Had you simply responded to the open dialogue with the new shipping address, there would have been one single ticket.

  5) In this overwhelming number of messages, our agent tried to combine them all into one streamlined conversation. Unfortunately, in doing so, he also combined your previous tickets which referenced the old address. 

  6) As a result, in his confusion, he reshipped your complimentary order to the old address rather than the new address.

  While I understand this is quite frustrating on your end, I do want to make it clear that we were under no obligation to re-ship your package in the first place. In order to make a change to an order, you must contact us prior to shipment. Because you did not do so, we had already incurred product, shipping, and fulfillment costs.

  However, to make the situation right, I have gone ahead and processed one more replacement order to your NEW address. It should be shipped within 2-3 business days and arrive next week. If you have any further questions, please send us a single message. Sending multiple only slows down our customer support process.

  Have a great day!

  ***

  Customer response

  11/01/2022

   
  Better Business Bureau:
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  *********************** - If you all would return phone calls you wouldn't get so many complaints.  

• Initial Complaint

  10/06/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I ordered merchandise from Fans of Free in December 2021, and January and February 2022.On February 21st I began receiving a $19.99 monthly charge to my credit card through this September for a total of $159.92. I called Fans of Free a week ago and was told I could not speak to a person and had to receive a response via e-mail which would be in 24 hours. I provided my e-mail address but never received a response. I did not sign up for nor would I have signed up for any membership that I was aware of during the checkout process and am requesting a full refund.

  Business response

  10/10/2022

  Hi *****, 

  First of all, I am sorry if you had a difficult time getting in touch with us. We do make an effort to send an outbound email to every voicemail we receive, but at times it can be difficult to transcribe email addresses accurately. The best way to get in contact is always via email at *******************************.

  I see that you mistakenly enrolled in the Team LGBTQ membership. This is an optional membership that must be explicitly opted into, and we do send welcome and order confirmation emails. From your 3 orders for physical merchandise, I see that you enrolled in the membership after your second order. After the 30 day free trial expired, your membership continued for an 8 month period. At any time this membership could have been canceled via phone, email, or directly on our website.

  At any rate, I see that all 8 monthly fees were already refunded to you on 10/05/22, prior to receiving this complaint. If you have not received those credits, they should arrive within 3 to 5 more business days. Unfortunately, we cannot refund you for the 3 merchandise orders as those have already been delivered and are well beyond our 30 return policy.

  If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to email us.

  Have a wonderful day!

   ***

• Initial Complaint

  08/26/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I made one purchase from this website, and without my knowledge or consent they have been charging my account $19.99 per month. Looking at reviews for the site, this is a common issue for a lot of people. I tried to log into an account on the website, but I don't even have one. There is no way to cancel the charges other than emailing them and waiting on a reply that others have said never comes or contacting my bank and hopefully being able to stop all charges from them.

  Business response

  09/01/2022

  Hi ***, I'm just writing to close out this ticket as it appears you have already been assisted. You gave us a call on 8/26 and opened this complaint the same day. However, within our standard 1-2 business timeframe, our customer support personnel was able to cancel your membership and issue you a refund.
  
  For future reference, the monthly membership is an optional add-on that you added to your cart. The membership details are explained on the sign-up page and reiterated in a welcome email. At any point, the membership can be canceled via phone, email, or directly on our website.
  
  I hope this information helps. If you have any other questions, we would be more than happy to continue to assist you at ******************************** Have a great day!

• Initial Complaint

  07/18/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Resolved

  More info

  I ordered a ring in a size 9, but they sent me a size 6. I've got a whole string of emails asking me to verify my shipping address and a promise to ship a replacement. I've offered to send this one back at my own expense, but I can't get them to respond. This has been going on for a few months now. All I want is the ring that I ordered and I will mail the other back at my expense if that's what they want. I can't get them to reply.

  Business response

  07/26/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/07/22) */ Hi ******, I just reviewed both of your tickets with our Customer Support team and I am very sorry for how your case was handled. Unfortunately your case was handled by an agent in training who was incorrectly creating replacement shipments. Because he did not classify the orders correctly - they never left our warehouse and instead were repeatedly being verified for a shipping address flag. This should not have fallen through the cracks as long as it did, and I apologize for the inconvenience. At any rate, I have created your replacement order myself now. You can keep the size 6 ring as I do not want to delay this order any further. We will ship your size 9 ring within 2-3 business days and you will receive a tracking number via email as soon as we do. Have a great weekend! Brendan Consumer Response /* (2000, 7, 2022/07/25) */ (The consumer indicated he/she ACCEPTED the response from the business.) Thank you so much and that statement makes a lot of sense about the various emails I sent. I really appreciate this being taken care of.

• Initial Complaint

  05/28/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I ordered something from "Fans of Free". I did NOT enroll in a monthly membership. I have been billed $19.99 twice for this! The first charge I thought was a one time charge, but when I was billed again, I decided to contact you. I live on SS retirement so I don't have an extra $20 each month. I will try to contact them to get that money back on my account.

  Business response

  06/22/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/06/06) */ Hi *******, first I just want to say that I am sorry if you had a hard time getting in touch with us. I searched our inbox and do not see any previous tickets under your name or email. Further, I can see that in your initial order, you accepted a bonus offer. This one time offer included a reduced price item and a free trial inside Team LGBTQ. Team LGBTQ is our digital membership which offers networking opportunities and insider discounts. Once the free trial ended, you were charged the normal fee of $19.99 for continued membership. Your paid membership lasted for two months, totaling $39.98. The details of this membership are explained on the enrollment page, and are included in a receipt email as well as a welcome email. These emails were successfully delivered (to the same email address used to open this dispute) on 03/22/22 at 7:38pm. However, I checked the activity of your account and can see that you have not made use of the membership benefits. As a result, I have issued you a full 100% refund of both months, and canceled your membership effective immediately. You should receive this credit within 3-5 business days and you will not be charged again. I hope that resolution is satisfactory! If you have any further questions, you can always contact us at ****@fansoffree.com.

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩