Scam Shopping Deals: Offers You Should Refuse!
There is a fine line between marketing hype and outright lies, but some "deals" are are only good for the company selling the product and and for you!
An example of this is Shopper's Saving Center
- ShoppersSavingCenter.com in the United States
- ShoppersSavingCenter.ca in Canada, and
- Shopperssavingcentre.biz in Australia
which sends you an email that implies that you won a free laptop computer. In fact, it is simply a marketing scheme to get you to buy their sponsor's products.
Scroll down this page to see the Canadian version of their website.
In the terms and conditions on their website, they state that you must: :
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Give them your address and other details
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Answer a short survey
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"Complete" "two (2) offers from Silver Offers, two (2) offers from Gold Offers, and two (2) offers on Platinum Offers." The state that "completing an offer" means to fulfill "the registration requirements unique to each offer. For credit card offers, you must be approved for and activate that credit card by making a purchase, balance transfer or cash advance to 'complete' the offer. For High-Speed Internet Service offers, you must order and install that High-Speed Internet Service to 'complete' the offer."
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Refer at least two unique households who must join and each successfully complete the required number of offers also
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Be a US resident (at shopperssavingcenter.com) or a Canadian resident (at Shopperssavingcenter.net )
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Agree to be on their mailing list (they say you can opt out later)
Is this a good deal? It sounds like you will probably need to sign up for a credit card and high-speed dsl. There may be other "offers", too, but it is our opinion that it is very unlikely that any of these "offers" would be the best value you can find. In other words, if you need a credit card or high-speed internet, go research them and select one on the open market. Considering that you can buy a decent new laptop for as little as $600, we suspect you will probably be paying too much for these services here.
And if you fail to meet the terms, including getting two other households to sign-up AND BUY OFFERS then you won't get the free laptop. And that is NO deal!
CFR's Recommendation:
AVOID ShoppersSavingCenter! Do NOT sign up for it!
How to file a complaint against Shoppers Saving Center
To file a complaint against them, go to the BetterBusinessBureau and click on "file a complaint". For the address of the business use the information below:
ShoppersSavingCenter.net
297 Kingsbury Grade #D, PO Box 4470, Stateline, NV 89449-4470
Contact Us: Click Here
Some of their emails also claim that this is the website of the owner of their copyrights, presumably their parent company: http://www.steamedsunset.com/ When we visited the website on February 7, 2007, we found nothing there.
What are victims saying about ShoppersSavingsCenter?
Canadian version:
And please let us know about any suspicious calls or emails you receive. We look for patterns so that we can alert the authorities and victims to new scams, before it is too late!
For a comprehensive list of national and international agencies to report scams, see this page.