Scams scams scams

One of the things I hate about today’s internet is that there are so many scams going on. I am lucky in that I have had very few things happen to me over the years (touch wood!).

I have bought a few things that have never arrived – one from an Facebook ad (shame on me for falling for that one), once from a bankruptcy estate, and once from Etsy. It has been pretty easy to receive my money back though. Paypal refunded me for the Etsy one, and my bank did chargebacks for the other two. I have a good financial history so the bank and Paypal have acted immediately when I request chargebacks or refunds.

I had a problem with someone using my email address to register on a site that spammed me about ten times a day. I tried writing to the company (no reply). I tried unsubscribing, I tried filtering all the mails to junk. Nothing worked. In the end I filed an official GDPR complaint, which the company received a copy of. They contacted me personally to say it would be dealt with by the end of the day.

Recently, someone cloned my Facebook account. The account used my photo, my details, and started to friend request my friends. I blocked the account and reported it several times. Sadly, Facebook uses AI to decide these things, and the bot kept rejecting my reports. Steve Morton of Philofaxy also reported it, as did my husband. Facebooks still did not remove the account. In the end I made a formal copyright claim through a form on Facebook’s website, and that finally worked. The grounds for the copyright claim were that I could prove I owned the photographs the account was using. I guess a human had to deal with a copyright claim, and the account was quickly removed

Then yesterday, I received a Paypal payment notification for a $33 subscription payment to a company called NordicaLab TestLibrary. A quick search shows that this is a common scam. There was no information to show what the subscription was for (or a record of my subscription), and the site looked pretty dodgy. This one was called NordicaLab but they seem to change name regularly, always keeping the TestLibrary email address. I could only escalate it to a dispute on Paypal after a month, so I applied for a refund to the site and within three minutes they had refunded me. This is what it looked like

My guess is that most people would not be fuelled with the righteous indignation I felt, many perhaps would not notice this deduction, or would not know what to do. This ‘company’ must make a huge amount of money from these people.

I come from a country with bad service delivery and rampant corruption, so I am used to being cynical, complaining, and making a nuisance of myself (daily emails or phone calls work wonders). I don’t mind complaining. Swedes, on the other hand have tended to be a little naive about the good in everything because there is high trust in the system and that other people are honest. Swedes also don’t like making a fuss.  It’s sad to see how this well-placed trust has been abused over recent years by bad actors. My Swedish husband hates chasing up missing deliveries, missing items in grocery deliveries, lost Amazon parcels, terrible courier service. He abhors contacting customer service but they are normally so helpful, and I am always grateful for their help.

NOTE

If you suddenly find deductions for one of these  ‘TestLibrary subscriptions,’ then send an email to the address in the Paypal notification requesting a refund.

If that fails, you could follow up with something to this effect (this was drafted and shared by someone else who was also charged by TestLibrary):

As an EU consumer, I rely on the mandatory protections of EU consumer
law, including Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights, as implemented
in national consumer law. These rules require clear pre-contractual
information on the total price, recurring charges, duration,
cancellation terms, and the consumer’s payment obligation before the
order is placed. Under Swedish Consumer Protection Act, Articles xxx and
xxx of the  require that the consumer be clearly
informed of the payment obligation before confirming the order.
Articles xxx et seq. also provide a 14-day withdrawal right for
distance contracts.

For digital content or digital services, any loss of the withdrawal
right requires, among other things, prior express consent to immediate
performance and an explicit acknowledgement by the consumer that they
will lose the right of withdrawal. Unless you can provide clear
evidence of such express consent and acknowledgement, I dispute both
the loss of my withdrawal right and the validity of the alleged
subscription charge.

I therefore consider this charge to result from insufficient
pre-contractual disclosure and potentially misleading commercial
practices, in particular because a low initial price appears to have
led to a recurring subscription that was not clearly consented to.

I hereby demand that you:

* refund the full amount of xxx to the original payment method;
* immediately and permanently cancel any subscription linked to my account;
* confirm in writing that no further charges will be attempted;
* preserve and provide, upon request, all evidence allegedly showing
my consent to the subscription, including checkout screenshots,
timestamp, checkbox record, wording displayed at the time of payment,
IP logs, acceptance logs, and the exact version of the terms displayed
at checkout.

If I do not receive a full refund within 14 calendar days of receipt
of this email, I will proceed without further notice with a bank
dispute / chargeback and reports to the competent consumer protection
authorities and relevant payment processors, including our GDPR DPA
where applicable, consumer protection bodies, and relevant
reporting channels given your business address.

I reserve the right to rely on all available evidence, including the
order confirmation email, payment screenshot, bank statement, lack of
subscription-service consumption, support correspondence, and public
reports showing similar recurring complaints.

This formal notice is sent without prejudice to any of my rights,
remedies, or claims.

Please confirm by return email that the full refund has been issued
and that the subscription has been permanently cancelled.