I usually don’t get that irritated with people or with companies, but Vista Print and their “partner” really irritated me. Let me explain what happened.
A few weeks ago I ordered some business cards through their site, this was around April/May I believe. Today I receive my credit card statement and see that I have these weird charges from a rewards program, a business max program, and a shopping essentials program. The total for each of these programs is $14.95/month. I actually moved from L.A. to SF late last year and I actually just started getting my credit card statements here. I look at the statement and noticed these bogus charges. I call Vista Print only to find out that the charges ARE NOT coming from them, they are coming from one of their so called partners. i call the partner company and explain the situation. The woman on the phone didn’t want to refund me the money! After a bit of coercing she finally refunded me for this last month, but wouldn’t tell me how much she refunded. I told her I wanted all charges taken off for the past 3 months and that I wanted the total amount being refunded. She said I signed up for a 30 day trial and that there is nothing she could do. In total I was charged $134.95.
What made matters worse is that the woman on the phone was speed reading her script and kept repeating the same line for each rewards program I wanted to cancel “just want to confirm im speaking with jacob.” For the 3rd damn time, YES! Then she went on and kept repeating, “I have done everything I could, just to confirm my name is bridgette and my number is 26010.” I almost hung myself with my shoelaces. I did love the scripted part about “oh you’re in San Francisco, how’s the weather.” She actually stumbled on that part which made it quite obvious it was scripted. This is how NOT TO DO customer service, in fact I wish I would have recorded the conversation. Vista Print and their rewards partner is not in the business of screwing people and they shouldn’t try. Why kind of impression am I supposed to have from Vista Print and their rewards partner after all of this? Well, I’ll tell you, my impression is that they try to sneak in little ads that with fine print that scam you into paying $14.95/month for rewards programs you don’t ask for and don’t need. They give you the first month free so that you eventually forget about the charges, then they nail you.
Needless to say I was rather upset, I called back to Vistaprint and got a supervisor on the phone who was able to clear the charges for me. What a shaddy way to do business and what a horrible customer service experience for me.
Have you had any such experiences with Vistaprint or with another company?
thanks for reading
You can also call your credit card company as well to deal with what you feel are fraudulent charges. I cannot say if it would work in this situation, but always something to consider.
good point! good to here from you micah, hows everything going?
I’m sorry to hear about the experience you had and am glad you were able to get the charges cleared. If you are looking for an alternative to VistaPrint, you should check out http://www.giggleprint.com.
@sondra
thanks for recommendation, i will check out giggleprint next time i need to print something 🙂 thanks for reading and for commenting!
Sunburned and a little sick, but otherwise going alright. 🙂
Well, only $14.95 per month? I've been paying $17.95 for a year and a half and I just discovered it!!! So what a bargain you got!
VistaPrint is lower than low. These deceptive and sneaky tactics should be punished! When I called the co. to cancel, I was told I would get a full refund in 3 days and they would cancel my “membership”. It was all too easy! I'm waiting 3 days and then calling back to check. There was a class action lawsuit filed against them in Aug of 08. I hope it works!
My bank says the only way to get them to stop is to change my debit card.
Friends don't let friends use VistaPrint!
Evelyn
wow, ya they are sneaky. i just called up their rewards program and they refunded me the money, you should definitely get some money back from those guys, it's so unfair what they're doing.
i hope it works out and no more vista print!
thanks for reading and commenting evelyn!
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http://www.123print.com/Business-Cards
123Print won't pull that stuff with you. I've been nothing but satisfied with them. Just thought I'd let you know. 🙂
Thats really great! So easy to uThats really great! So easy to use.se.
Very bad experience. The best you need to do is filed a complaint to the customer service dept of your credit card and then change your provider to much know credit card provider.
I'm sorry to hear what happen and good thing you were able to cleared up things. If you think that there is something fishy going on on your credit card you shouldn't hesitate to call your credit card company to avoid fraudulent transaction.
Thank you Jacob for exposing Vistaprint Business Cards. I received an email from them offering me 500 business cards for just $1.99. Sounding too good to be true I decided to check out their websites and found you. I appreciate folks like you who warn the rest of us from your experiences. I do the same thing. Too bad because if they were on the up and up I could have given them a lot of business – my husband is an artist and needs cards and I do pet sitting in my home and also need cards..
I hope you got back what you deserve. I usually let crooks know that not only do I intend to report them to the Better Business Bureau but to the Fair Trade Commission and the Attorney General, and will carry it out unless they come clean.
Why does this company have so many negative comments on epinions.com? I have seen their website and it looks great and this article is impressive, but the feedback from small biz customers is very alarming.
merchant services
If you are really making PCI compliance resolutions completely based on cost then you should be picking Cisco’s adaptive wIPS to meet requirement.
Way to expose a shady, low quality business. I wrote an article on 6 reasons Vistaprint sucks on my blog if you want to check it out.
I'm sorry to hear about the experience you had. Actually i had same feeling ever they said product is free, but also have charges on us. And i have tried another printing company, i love their color quality and quality. And i like their service, they don't have any hidden fees. If you looking for an alternative to VistaPrint, you should check out http://www.printfac3.com
I'm sorry to hear about the experience you had. Actually i had same feeling ever they said product is free, but also have charges on us. And i have tried another printing company, i love their color quality and quality. And i like their service, they don't have any hidden fees. If you looking for an alternative to VistaPrint, you should check out http://www.printfac3.com
Just goes to prove nothing is free…there is always a catch. There should be legal acts against 'FREE' abuse…free should be free.
Maybe I can offer an option for all of the unhappy vista print customers of the future. Please visit us at http://www.855print85.com we are a U.S. based print company, we would like to believe we offer good customer service and turnaround times we can also be reached by dialing 855print85
Maybe I can offer an option for all of the unhappy vista print customers of the future. Please visit us at http://www.855print85.com we are a U.S. based print company, we would like to believe we offer good customer service and turnaround times we can also be reached by dialing 855print85
Well, this one is really looking informative post about Visaprint business cards. And this post really unveils the best review for that thing. As this one really discloses that these cards aren’t free. And the hidden charges really contains on that. So thanks for informing and updating to us.
catalog printing
I hate these guys.
I was actually amazed by their free offers, I loved the way they packaged the stuff I ordered, everything is awesome. And then one thing started bugging me. Man, didn’t I see $50 Google Adwords credit in my Cart?
Yes I did.
But where is it? I don’t have it. So I e-mailed their support, they got back to me after 7 days with some lobotomized answer. Eventually, after 3-4 more mails (a month had passed), they “manually put the Google Adwords credit in my Cart, ready for my next order”. It would be order #3.
And there it was, in my Cart. It even increased to $75. Cool. But…as soon as I clicked “Checkout”, the item just disappeared from my cart. One month later I’m still talking to their customer service which is just awful.
Vistaprint seriously sucks. And this thing with Google Adwords credit disappearing from the Cart is downright illegal.
F you Vistaprint. We should just keep ordering their freebies, paying only for the S&H, to make them print hundreds of thousands of unpaid items to put them out of business.
Apparently there is lawsuits against vista print now for violating privacy laws pending from 4 different states. Crazyness! I had these guys print some promo cards for me a while back and they came back terrible. I have since used this company in Florida Dlux Printing. They actually answer the phones and answered all of my questions so I let them do a print and mail piece for me. Everything went smooth the piece looked great and I got a lot of response highly recommend them -> http://www.dluxprinting.com/