More and more I’ve been hearing complaints about VistaPrint’s “deceptive” enrollment into their “VistaPrint Rewards” program. First, I heard grumblings from colleagues who had experienced it, and now from one of my own clients. During his tax compilation tasks, he noticed a recurring $14.95 charge to his credit card for this “rewards program” posting for several months. He linked the first charge back to around the time he made a one-time order through VistaPrint.

Here’s the skinny.

On www.ConsumerAffairs.com I found a complaint log dating back to 2005 regarding this issue. Complaint after complain after complaint mentions the same thing.

During the checkout process, a buyer is presented with a “$10 VistaPrint cash back offer”. Sounds good, right? WRONG!  What it really is … enrollment into the VistaPrint Rewards Program … not even administered by VistaPrint, but instead by a 3rd party (Vertrue, formerly MWI, alias MemberWorks Inc.). It’s just one of many “negative-option” schemes making the rounds. In the case of VistaPrint, during the order process, you’re presented with this misleading option. If you don’t read all the fine print, you’ve now enrolled yourself into a (completely unrelated to VistaPrint service offerings) travel, entertainment, rewards program. They use all the information from your order process (i.e., credit card number, name, email, etc.) to supply to this 3rd party (i.e., you don’t go to another screen or website to enter in your credit card number to order this service). 

After the 30 day “trial” period (that most people don’t appear to even know about), your card starts getting automatically charged $14.95 each month. And, if that card is a debit check card, this could mean bounced items and NSF charges because you didn’t know the charge was coming.

Sure, VistaPrint says you’ll receive an email confirming your enrollment, but we all know that more than likely, that’s going to end up in your spam folder — and since you weren’t looking out for a confirmation of this enrollment, since you don’t even realize you were enrolled, you would furthermore take it as spam.

Here’s the direct link to the Consumer Affairs Vista Print complaint page that reiterates the same complaints over and over again. 

Here’s what one poster wrote:

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“Jim of Colorado Springs CO (03/17/08)
I needed some business cards quick and ordered from Vistaprints. Soon after, I received unauthorized recurring charges of $14.95. I called American Express who initially agreed to investigate the charges. While on the phone, I Googled this site and directed American Express to the site. They changed the investigation to a ‘fraud’ and credited my back the charges. I left Vistaprint my opinion by email and will report them to the BBB.”

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Here’s an excerpt from VistaPrint’s FAQ page:

After completing a VistaPrint order, customers may be presented with an offer page offering the opportunity to take advantage of a $10 VistaPrint cash back offer for joining the VistaPrint Rewards Program. This offer page contains details about the VistaPrint Rewards Program including offer benefits, services and the associated monthly fee required to participate. If a customer chooses to accept this offer the credit card used for the customers VistaPrint purchase will be automatically charged the applicable monthly fees after a 30 day free-trial period, and VistaPrint will transfer certain personal information, including the customers credit card information, to a service provider that administers the program.

Obviously, with the shear number of complaints still occurring (most recent was a couple weeks ago), those so-called “details” are still not obvious enough to the buyers.

To learn more about this third party company and what is now being called the “negative-option” schemes (where companies enroll you in their plan without your asking, and it’s then up to you to cancel the enrollment),

check out this ConsumerAffairs post regarding Vertrue, ex-MWI.

Here, you’ll find similar types of “schemes”. One gentleman writes:

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Don of Omaha NE (12/20/07)
On December 14, 2007 I discovered a questionable charge of $249.95 on my bank cash card account from something called Simply You. Having no idea what this was, I called the phone number ( 888-242-0180) listed with the charge. I told the rep that I didn’t know what this was and he said that it was some kind of membership that I had become involved in resulting from a purchase I made in 2003! I asked to have this credited immediately and he wanted to send me some kind of trial material first. I remember it having something to do with discounts and rebates on certain services and products. Wanting nothing to do with this, I insisted on the credit and he said it would be processed, which it was a few days later.

After hanging up, I was suspicious and so I looked my old bank statements back to 2003. I found the original purchase which was for $27.44 in February 2003. I don’t remember what this was for and I certainly don’t recall enrolling in any kind of ‘membership’. I found the first yearly charge from Simply You in Dec 2003 for $109.95. Then each December from then on they were sticking me a charge. Here they are: Dec 2003, $109.95, Dec 2004, $199.95, Dec 2005, $219.95, Dec 2006, $239.95 and Dec 2007, $249.95. All total $1,019.75. As I said earlier, I have received credit of $249.95 for the Dec 2007 charge but that leaves a total of $769.80 in bogus fraudulent charges to me. I have initiated a claim with the Neb BBB and have reported this to the Neb Attorney General. I have sent emails directly to Vertrue and they are not answering me. I am thinking about paying a personal call to their offices in Omaha to see if that accomplishes anything.

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A similar thing happened to my Grandma a couple years back. She had ordered an item over the phone and provided her checking account number for payment (check draft). Later, we found they were debiting $249 each quarter via a check draft (so it was very difficult to dispute), and we couldn’t get them to stop. We finally had to close the checking account. When I called on her behalf to complain, they had the recording available where she accepted the “discount program”. Interestingly, it was the evidence that showed she was actually bamboozled … it was clear on the recording that they were confusing my grandma, and when she would say no, they would continue offering it, but using different words and phrases. It was about a 5 minute conversation!  Finally she said, ” …. uh, okay”, but it was absolutely clear she was worn down (her breathing was labored as she’s on oxygen), and she didn’t understand. My gosh …. she’s in her late 80’s!

So … here’s a buyer beware caution, not only as it relates to VistaPrint’s checkout procedures, but when ordering from any vendor these days!! When they say something like, “Would you be interested in our free gas program”, or “rewards program” or “discount program” … say NO and don’t change your mind!

I used to have a VistaPrint affiliate link on my website that offered special discounts not normally available on their website … I have now removed it. I cannot support these types of masked selling methods as I, too, consider it a “scheme”.