Scorcher Posted September 4, 2009 Share Posted September 4, 2009 As an umeployed person who watches TV alot, I had seen the "Video Professor" ads quite frequently. His ads made me cry because he reminded me of my youth and I thought he was the nicest old man on TV since the voice on "Carvel Ice Cream". With tears streaming down my face I called the 800 number and said," I'd like to get the free program that nice old man said I could have so I can get a better job, and if you have ice cream cakes ,I'll take one of those too." The jist of the program is they send you the first DVD for free and then if after 30 days you decide you want the whole program , they will send you the rest of their program for a one time payment of $189.00. My wife and I agreed to this and eagerly awaited our "free" DVD. We chose "Excel". This transaction took place on July 13, 2009. On July 27,(14 days later) our account was charged $189.00 to Video Professor. My wife and I were concerned about this. My wife is a facilities manager who reads contracts all day. She went on line and checked it out and said that on line it was presented as a one time charge for the whole program. We felt that if it was $189.00 for the whole program , ( to improve our computer skills) even though they had charged us after 14 days instead of 30 , we could live with that. We received another set of DVD's in the beginning of August, and thought this was an ongoing part of our program. On August 19th another $189.00 was deducted from our account. My wife called the company and asked what was up? The representative said we did not cancel in time, so we were charged again. I was listening to the call and I interrupted my wife and said," If we were charged after 14 days for the first DVD's and then charged $189.00 for the second set, ask him what we got for free? The rep had no answer for this question, and when asked by my wife if they had a lot of complaints, he said "Yes." The deal was that he (the rep. ) would send us a form to cancel and we could fill it out: send everything back and get our money back. My wife asked him to e-mail it to us and he said he would. UPDATE: It has been 1 week and we have not received any e-mails. We have sent the 2nd DVD's back as instructed by the rep. We are still waiting for some kind of resolution. The commercial was clearly not the reality I have lived so far. Have any of you had experiences with "Video Professor"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matt770 Posted September 4, 2009 Share Posted September 4, 2009 (edited) Hey man, it's the 21st century. Nice old men rip you off. Whenever that commercial comes on, I laugh and wonder what kind of idiot cannot figure out how to buy & sell items on Ebay. I'm sure it's good for things like Excel, PowerPoint, etc....but $189.00 sounds mighty steep for information you could probably Google. ETA: I'd play hardball, ask to speak to a supervisor and tell them you plan on spreading the word throughout every online forum you can find that Video Professor is crap and a ripoff. If they don't cooperate I would then file a dispute with my credit card company and explain that you were defrauded. If the language in their fine print is misleading as you say it is, they should take your side and refund your money. If not, I would threaten to cancel with them too. Good luck. Edited September 4, 2009 by matt770 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
untateve Posted September 4, 2009 Share Posted September 4, 2009 Did you pay by credit card? If so, call your credit card company and tell them that you dispute the charges and the reason why. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted September 4, 2009 Share Posted September 4, 2009 I'm convinced that anything you see on TV that uses the word "free" is a scam. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TimC Posted September 4, 2009 Share Posted September 4, 2009 I'm convinced that anything you see on TV that uses the word "free" is a scam. Almost every commercial on TV/radio today is a big scam. The best one I've heard yet is the Payday Loan Consolidation people. Are we really serious about this? You have two or more spam and need a loan to bundle them. I'd love to see the interest rate on that scam. But anyways, yeah, that nice old man giving out free computer help probably hangs out at school yards in a white unmarked van in his spare time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big John Posted September 4, 2009 Share Posted September 4, 2009 I'm convinced that anything you see on TV that uses the word "free" is a scam. Caffeine-free Diet Coke? And the bigger ripoffs are "Free" Credit Report, as posted here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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