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Scams and fraud

Rewards Club scam from Easylife - I'm furious

(11 Posts)
muckandnettles Wed 13-Nov-24 17:18:02

I'm furious because my elderly friend, 86, has had several lots of £18.50 taken out of his bank account by something called Rewards Club. I've done some digging and it seems that he must have bought something over the phone from maybe a catalogue called Easylife and they have then sold him some sort of subscription to a magazine called Perx. This then means he has authorised them to take money out of his account at various times during the year. It's always £18.50 but different times of the month and not regularly every month, so difficult to spot. The magazine has not appeared.

I have PoA for my friend and have called the company and they have cancelled the subscription and refunded 3 payments but say they need to see a photo or hard copy of the PoA to refund any more. I've refused to do that but offered the online code on Gov.uk so they can access it, but they've said no even though my friend has spoken to them while I'm there and said I'm acting on his behalf. I think we are probably just fortunate to catch it this soon, to be honest as it could have run on for years. From the way the representative spoke to me over the phone, this is obviously a familiar conversation and there was no argument about the refunds for the last 6 months.

I just wanted to tell everyone to look at bank accounts very carefully for these payments. Both Which and Moneysavingexpert have a lot of stories about this but I was quite unaware. It's not actually illegal I suppose, but it's deliberately targeting the elderly. I'd be interested if anyone else has had the same experience. Fortunately my friend is a fairly resilient character and he isn't too short of money, and so he isn't too bothered by this, but it could really upset some people, I'm sure. I can also see that they've been doing this mis-selling or whatever you want to call it for years and there doesn't seem any way to stop them. So I'm putting it on here in the hopes that it might help someone by alerting them to it.

MayBee70 Wed 13-Nov-24 20:23:45

I think someone mentioned this before but I’d forgotten about it. I do use Easylife a lot ( I prefer them to Must Have Ideas who sold me the useless table). But I remember now that, when I first used them someone phoned me up and tried to get me to join their loyalty scheme. Thanks for flagging this up.

M0nica Wed 13-Nov-24 22:39:36

EasyLife are legal con merchants. I saw something today which interested me - then I saw it was being sold by Easy Life and promptly logged out.

They get people in by selling them something, and then either on the form or over the phone you quite unknowingly signup for these subscriptios. I had to deal with them a couple of times when I worked for Age UK. Theydo not like repaying the subscriptions or cancelling them. But if you keep calm and very persistent, they do.

If you have a real problem speak to Age UK, Ciitizen's Advice or your local Trading Stndards officer. They know all about them

muckandnettles Fri 15-Nov-24 12:36:08

Hi @MOnica, I'm at the keeping calm and being persistent stage of trying to get back the remaining £37 owed, but in the end I'll probably have to wrote a letter which annoys me as that seems such a faff these days, but it's one of the alternatives they are suggesting as I don't want to send a photo of the PoA. It annoys me because if they understand why I'm dealing with someone's affairs, they can also understand why a letter written by me and signed by the person is pretty meaningless. So annoying.

Allira Fri 15-Nov-24 12:48:46

Thank you for the warning, muckandnettles; DH has bought stuff from their catalogue which comes inside magazines, newspapers.

I can also see that they've been doing this mis-selling or whatever you want to call it for years and there doesn't seem any way to stop them.
I'd call it a scam, probably targeting the elderly as they might be the most likely group to buy from these catalogues.

I hope you manage to get the rest of the money back for your friend.

Allira Fri 15-Nov-24 12:50:12

Their email to cancel an account is
[email protected]

If they take any notice of that.

Sarah65 Fri 15-Nov-24 17:21:31

I wasn't happy with my recent dealings with Easy Life, they refused to arrange a collection of a heavy item I'd ordered from them via Amazon (Amazon's info was that the seller had to collect faulty/unwanted items) I had to give up

keepingquiet Fri 15-Nov-24 18:18:59

Yes, I bought something from them years ago and then regularly had cold calls selling me a 'benefits' package of some sort open only to their customers. I refused to subscribe but they were quite persistent.

I no longer get the calls but they e-mail me almost daily, but I just delete them.

bikergran Sat 16-Nov-24 07:29:45

Do not deal with this company,! do not order from their fancy little gimmicky catalogue! The same thing happened to my mum, she had ordered something from their magazine not knowing that at the same time she was signing up to a Membership (apparently you had to do this in order to order anything)!

It wasn't until after my mum died and I was going through bank statements that I saw this money being taken out.

Managed to find out who they were, but it took a few firm emails and phone calls to get some of the money refunded around £90.

How they are still managing to get away with this I really don't know.

Just google/review them.

MayBee70 Sat 16-Nov-24 08:52:33

I buy lots of stuff from them and, to my knowledge, have never had a problem. They did phone me up once to try to get me to join their scheme but I declined and they never phoned again. I will check my bank statements, though.

muckandnettles Fri 22-Nov-24 17:20:43

Just a little update from my original post. I pursued them a bit by email for the £37 still owed but in the end relented and wrote them a curt little letter signed by my friend whose membership with Rewards Club was causing the problem, as they had asked. They refunded the money immediately, so he has it all back now. I'm just furious about the time I have spent on this and the nuisance to my friend, who actually couldn't care less about this really, (but mainly because I've down played it to him as a minor niggle). I've spent ages on the phone, then emailing and then writing a completely meaningless letter to them, all for 5 x £18.50. It hardly seems worth it in one sense, but I guess that's what they rely on people thinking.

The more I think about it the more annoying it is. I'm interested @bikergran in your experience that your mum was told she had to sign up to the 'club' to be able to order anything as that could be exactly what my friend was told as that would make sense. It seems to me that they deliberately target the elderly, absolutely, as anyone else will tell them to get lost. My friend is a dear man who is very chatty and sociable and will ask anyone how they are and what the weather is like where they are - if someone responds to him, he would find it very difficult to tell them a firm no.