WaveEgreetings.com Scam? or Legit?
This afternoon I received an email that said the following…
Welcome to Midwave Products LLC!
Congratulations Avery,
This e-mail is to confirm your recent/successful WaveEGreetings.com
order! Log in online and get instant access to hundreds of E-Greeting
Cards!
Billing Telephone Number: **********
As part of your service with the WaveEGreetings.com program, you will
receive:
Unlimited access to ecards for every occasion!
Send greetings to your friends and family.
Create unique and personalized greetings.
Your WaveEGreetings.com account can be accessed by going to
www.waveEgreetings.com/login.asp and entering in your username and
password below;
username: ****************
password: *************
For your convenience you will be billed a monthly fee of $14.95 on your
local phone bill for the phone number you provided which is **********.
Although, there is no affiliation with your local phone company, these
charges will appear on your local telephone bill on the Transaction
Clearing bill page as being billed on behalf of Midwave Products, LLC.
There is no long term contract and the service can be cancelled at any
time.
If you have questions or concerns and need to contact customer service
just simply reply to this e-mail and we will be happy to assist you.
You can cancel the service by calling 866-982-3699or by emailing us at
support@waveEgreetings.com and include your home telephone number or
simply reply to this email stating “cancel”. Or write us at PO Box 17598
Suite# 77145, Baltimore, Maryland 21297-1598.
Thank you and Congratulations on joining WaveEGreetings.com
Sincerely,
WaveEGreetings.com Customer Support
—————————————-
AT&T ENDUSERS:You have the right to dispute the Midwave Products LLC
charges billed on your local telephone bill. You are not legally
responsible for Midwave Products LLC charges incurred by minors or
vulnerable adults without your consent. Your local telephone service
will not be disconnected because you fail to pay a charge by Midwave
Products LLC except that nonpayment of certain regulated
telecommunication charges may result in disconnection of service in
Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, South Carolina and
Tennessee. Enhanced Telecommunications Service Providers may employ
other agencies to collect delinquent charge, even if your local phone
company has previously adjusted them from your telephone bill.
My first thought was that this was a phishing email and I checked out the links in the message and the site of waveEgreetings.com because….
To be honest I’m not that hot on FREE ecards really – much less a $14.95 per month subscription (!$!$!$???) It all seemed legit and so I sent a message to the support@ email mentioned in the message I got to cancel immediately and make sure that no charges ever appeared for this on my phone bill.
And…
—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–
(reason: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected support@waveEgreetings.com)
—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to smtp.secureserver.net.:
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected support@waveEgreetings.com
550 5.1.1
So…. I tried replying to the message as instructed as our second option to cancel….
—– The following addresses had permanent fatal errors —–
(reason: 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected membership@waveEgreetings.com)
—– Transcript of session follows —–
… while talking to smtp.secureserver.net.:
>>> RCPT To:
<<< 550 #5.1.0 Address rejected membership@waveEgreetings.com
550 5.1.1
By now I was fairly primed for a phone call and called the number listed in the email. I looked on their website to try to verify that this really is the number of Midwave Products LLC – but their site does not have contact information and I was NOT about to login to an account I didn’t want in the first place to see if they posted a phone number inside the gates. –CORRECTION– I do see that they do have their phone # on their main webpage – it’s in the VERY small print after the box to check for agreeing to the terms and conditions….etc.
So, I called and about 5 minutes after my call I was told that I was the next caller in line and my call would be handled by the next available representative. There was a pause in the music and then a click and a fast busy. I was hung up on!
So, I called back and was connected fairly quickly to a representative who asked for a confirmation of phone number and address. It was canceled in short order.
First off, I really DON’T LIKE to see services “conveniently bill to your telephone bill.” I have seen lots of companies do this and they most all have been scams. One company I know had a sudden charge on their bill for webhosting from God only knows where. I DID THEIR webhosting. Our best guess was that somebody called up and asked some questions and they suddenly had a $100 a month charge added to their phone bill. They canceled in short order and the phone representative I spoke with said that they had a lot of complaints from that particular group. I remember going through similar problems with long distance slammers at one point as well. I seem to recall even one more “service” that we found a charge for on our bill that was not something we authorized.
I suspect that many businesses and individuals either don’t look closely at their phone bills and just pay it or…. are big enough that the person paying the bill is not the one authorizing charges on it and they don’t ask any questions.
I thank the representative at waveegreetings.com for the quick and easy cancellation. However, I will be watching carefully to make sure that there are no charges for this.
So…. this leaves me with a few questions.
1) WHO would pay $15 each month to be able to send electronic greeting cards !!!!!
2) Are there people that get a commission for signing up new leads for wavegreetings.com (my bet is the answer is yes…)
3) Have you ever had a strange charge on your phone bill?
4) Has anyone else had a similar experience with WaveEgreetings.com?