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Last post Author Topic: A Warning about Thinkall.com  (Read 42043 times)

jesslambio

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #25 on: July 18, 2006, 07:51 AM »
thank you mouser!

yes Carol Haynes, we have watchdog type TV programs here.

http://www.klastv.co...&nav=menu102_1_2

you can write them and give them more info

kimmchii

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #26 on: July 18, 2006, 08:06 AM »
jess, go here and File a Complaint:

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the  Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the  National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C).
If you find a good solution and become attached to it, the solution may become your next problem.
~Robert Anthony

jesslambio

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #27 on: July 18, 2006, 08:16 AM »
nah, its too meticulous. all i really want to know is how come they are selling free programs and if they have a license to sell these programs.

jesslambio

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #28 on: July 18, 2006, 01:56 PM »

JeffK

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #29 on: December 19, 2006, 01:40 PM »
I didn't see the above warnings before I was also caught by this scam.  And boy didn't they come on all sweetie pie when they responded to my complaint, including the offer of two CD's ($150 value) for nothing and postage free.

I cancelled via their website and now all that is left to do is to carefully consider the words I am going to use when I reply.

Jeff

Redhat

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #30 on: December 19, 2006, 04:26 PM »
The general idea is a scam.

Selling open-source software, isn't.. it's legal - and to be honest - a big part of the GPL that you can redistribute the software..

But IMO Thinkall are scamming, deceiving, lying, tricking dross and should be banned from any kind of directorship indefinitely. 

timonterey

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #31 on: December 27, 2006, 04:24 PM »
Thanks Everyone for Posting this info.
I agree that there is no reason to suffer any loss to these cretins.
I had all charges to me reversed, and reported them to the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
-TM

sipsake

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #32 on: December 30, 2006, 06:48 PM »
Holy Pondscum, Batman!

I just visited their site after reading these posts...what a bunch of vermin.
Southern DOS: Y'all reckon? (Yep/Nope)

mouser

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #33 on: February 27, 2007, 01:34 AM »
Someone just sent me this info:

>         I just wanted to alert you and others that there is a court
> case against Think All Publishing for ripping off consumers.  Am not
> sure if refunds will be available.  Please let others know.  I think it is through the FRC.

nite_monkey

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #34 on: February 28, 2007, 01:15 PM »
someone try to goto their site, I just went to it, and all I got was the msn search that pops up (school default search engine) sometimes when the page cant be found. I think they finally got shut down.
[Insert really cool signature here]

JeffK

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #35 on: February 28, 2007, 01:28 PM »
Looks like your are right.  The US Federal Trade Commission has loned them up.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/01/manay.htm

Not before time IMHO. 

The next internet rogues the FTC should get are Registerfly.

Jeff

ogladylee

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #36 on: May 29, 2007, 07:35 AM »
:huh: This is really strainge. A year ago I too had ordered some CD's from ThinkAll.com. Hmmm! But I never had the same result as the rest of you guys an gals. I was charged only the shipping and handling as I was told I would. I was going to look into if they had anything new when I ran across your little forum. I was truely shocked at the comments made here. I am so sorry that so many have been ripped off by these people. :o :'( :mad:

Carol Haynes

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #37 on: May 29, 2007, 07:49 AM »
Looks like your are right.  The US Federal Trade Commission has loned them up.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/01/manay.htm

Not before time IMHO. 

The next internet rogues the FTC should get are Registerfly.

Jeff

Hey - result ....

Darwin

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #38 on: May 29, 2007, 08:46 AM »
Reading this thread has brought back some bad memories with a silver lining - a lesson learned. I got burned in a similar manner - for a lot more money - by HighBeam research. I was googling for some info relating to my PhD research project and found it at Highbeam. In order to read the article I was encouraged to purchase a full membership or to sign up for a free 7 day trial. I opted for the trial. Part of the sign up process required supplying credit card information, which really should have clued me in, but didn't. Because I use Roboform, this happened automatically and I clicked right through the "Roboform has filled in sensitive information" warning because the sign up blurb gave me some (now forgotten) spiel about why they needed this information to process my trial. I used the service the one time and promptly forgot about it. I guess this occurred right at the end of my credit card's billing cycle because I signed up on March 19 and the trial ended March 26. I wrote to them on April 1 querying the $120 Cdn. charge to my credit card:

I have just noted a $120 Cdn. charge on my credit card from Highbeam
Research. Apparently, my trial period ended five days ago and has been
converted into a full membership account. I received no warning of the
trial period coming to an end and was thus afforded no opportunity to
cancel the membership before it's conversion to a paid account. I also
received no receipt from HighBeam Research, nor an e-mail advising me
that my credit card had been charged.

Their response indicated that I had agreed to the trial reverting to full, paid membership if not cancelled within 7 days by agreeing to the TOS. NB that at no point were the fees stated during the sign up process (One result of this experience is that I now check the price of services and software before signing up for trials!). They would not budge and I didn't pursue the matter as I felt like a real idiot! I received a receipt a week later. Anyway, I took this as a hard lesson well learned about being careful when signing up for ANYTHING on the internet.

Reading this thread this morning prompted me to go take a look at the HighBeam TOS and I note that there is a prominent note about this at the top of the page (the pertinent clause is 2.5). They have the end user agree to the TOS by filling in a radio button indicating that they have read it - it's hyperlinked to the right of the radio button. I am sure that they are operating within the letter of the law, however, I feel that it is shady to offer a trial without EXPLICITLY stating during the sign-up process that the end user has effectively purchased a fully paid membership with a 7 day opt out option.

Again, my fault for agreeing to the TOS without bothering to read it :-[ Needless to say, I no longer agree to anything without at least scanning the TOS for pitfalls like this!
« Last Edit: May 29, 2007, 08:52 AM by Darwin »

Veign

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #39 on: May 29, 2007, 10:00 AM »
Looks like your are right.  The US Federal Trade Commission has loned them up.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2007/01/manay.htm

Not before time IMHO. 

The next internet rogues the FTC should get are Registerfly.

Jeff

Hey - result ....
-Carol Haynes (May 29, 2007, 07:49 AM)

Except I have been following and blogging about ThinkAll since the start and it seems that even after the FTC injunction that ThinkAll is still charging credit card accounts.  In fact they had gone back online, under their HTTPS connection, for a short time (month or so). 

ThinkAll is a very determined company which means they will take their punishment, step back, re-group and come out with another company (scam).

Carol Haynes

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #40 on: May 29, 2007, 11:08 AM »
Reading this thread has brought back some bad memories with a silver lining - a lesson learned. I got burned in a similar manner - for a lot more money - by HighBeam research.

Actually they seem to have changed - they always used to be upfront about trials and costs but I see there is no mention of the subscription price on the page where you sign up (by the way they are now charging $199 a year - which seems rather excessive!).

One way round these "free trial but you must tell us your credit card number" schemes is to cancel the trial immediately - most of them still allow the trial period to run - and in the case of Highbeam they have a free basic membership. Another way is to get your credit card details wrong! If you don't want to be too obvious get the expiry date wrong or 'accidentally' transpose two numbers in the card number. That way when they charge you they have to contact you to correct the details!

Darwin

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #41 on: May 29, 2007, 11:32 AM »
Nice pointers, Carol - thanks! It took me over a year to post about it because I was that embarrassed. C'est la vie...

I thought $99.95 was excessive - outrageous, actually. $199 is just plain obscene. I had a full membership for one year and didn't really use it very much. I tried quite hard to get my money's worth, but succeeded only in so far as it was a lesson learned. Their service isn't that bad, actually, just not overly suited to academic research. Quite valuable as a repository of newspaper and magazine articles. My main complaint was that the emphasis is on text rather than graphics, so many interesting articles would be missing the illustrations and tables.

Overall, I just had a bitter taste in my mouth over the money, which was at least 50% my fault anyway.

tide

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #42 on: July 31, 2007, 01:31 AM »
If you don't want to be too obvious get the expiry date wrong or 'accidentally' transpose two numbers in the card number.
-Carol Haynes (May 29, 2007, 11:08 AM)

That won't accomplish anything. Your credit card number will be promptly rejected because it will fail the modular checksum test. And the credit card company will reject an incorrect expiration date as well.

Carol Haynes

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #43 on: July 31, 2007, 03:39 AM »
It's worked for me in the past. They aren't supposed to charge your card until the end of the trial. If my card details get rejected before the trial I would be worried.

I have also used this trick where there doesn't seem to be a way to cancel a subscription - just update your card details to invalid values and wait for them to contact you!

Darwin

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #44 on: July 31, 2007, 10:17 AM »
Nice tip Carol, that I missed the first time around. I'll definitely be using it the next time I am faced with something like this.

tide

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #45 on: July 31, 2007, 01:44 PM »
It's worked for me in the past.
-Carol Haynes (July 31, 2007, 03:39 AM)

That means that they aren't checking your numbers which is good to know. My experience with other companies is that they promptly bounce your credit card if it's an invalid number. (I discovered this by mistyping my number once or twice.)

housetier

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #46 on: June 17, 2008, 09:01 AM »
I wonder all the victims will get their money now:

The operator of a software company that used automatic memberships to trick people into spending money for free software agreed to pay a $2.1 million settlement to pay them back. Yuri Mintskovsky, owner of Think All Publishing, admitted no wrongdoing in settling with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

If there was no wrongdoing, why settle at all?

mouser

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #47 on: June 17, 2008, 09:05 AM »
Yuri Mintskovsky, owner of Think All Publishing, admitted no wrongdoing in settling with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Welcome to the insane world of legal responsibility and settlements.  It seems incredibly common for everyone in the legal world to reach monetary settlements which involve no one ever admitting fault, and everyone agreeing to not discuss the terms of the settlement, etc.  To me it sounds a lot like "we will pay you more if we can all agree to pretend we never did anything wrong".

mwb1100

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #48 on: June 17, 2008, 12:06 PM »
To me it sounds a lot like "we will pay you more if we can all agree to pretend we never did anything wrong".

I think it's more because such an admission would open them to potentially more liability (maybe even criminal).  And if the 'disclaimer' were not part of the settlement, the settlement itself could be used as implicating evidence.  I think the worth of those disclaimers in terms or PR is pretty much zero.  They are strictly a legal necessity (for want of a better word).

Veign

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Re: A Warning about Thinkall.com
« Reply #49 on: July 01, 2008, 01:30 PM »
Update on what happened to ThinkAll:
http://www.veign.com...-pay-22-million.html

Justice!