08712242255

I too am a former (very very former and never again I might add) customer of Space Bags!.  I recieved my membership letter through between Christmas and New Year (dated 15th December).  I'm very grateful to have found this site and all the information on it.

I ordered my space bags in May/June and can't recall any further contact with them, though I can't swear to it.  What I can guarantee is that I have not given my permission or agreed to a further holiday company offer with a £99.99 membership fee!  

I'm hoping I still have time to cancel and will be contacting my bank and trading standards - totally unacceptable practice.  I'll also be having a bit of a chat with the Data Protection officer I work alongside to see what he can recommend in terms of follow up and eliciting more information.  It is infuriating to have to spend time stressing and following up on this!

I have had many fraud free years on the internet and consider myself fortunate this is only the second time I've had any kind of financial sting but it still doesn't make it any less pleasant.  I too will be seeking to get a full transcript of the call where I have allegedly 'agreed' to this.

Thanks again to all those who have take then time to post their own stories and to those who have found other information out to help draw the common threads together and pin point who is responsible.

Interestingly enough just read this on the Space Bags site re their handling of your personal data:-

"Credit card and e-mail information will not be shared or sold to third parties for any purpose without your express permission."

So I'm writing to them to ask them to demonstrate where they had my 'express permission'.... think a note to the Information Commisoner's Office might just be in order

The same thing has happened to me, I have just had 99.99 taken from my bank account, I too purchased from the company called Space Bags. Unfortunately it's 9pm so I will have to wait until the morning to call my bank and Free & Easy. Who do you report them to & why are they still getting away with this scam three months later, when they apparently have already been reported?

On checking my bank statement today £99.99 has been debited from my account to FREE & EASY
I have never heard of them or spoken to them let alone agree to pay them any money.have phoned them & was told I must of agreed to join a membership with them How have they got my details?

Hi, to every one who has been scammed by Free & Easy my card has just been credited with £99 pounds via Visa card, I have refused totally to accept anything other than this problem to be sorted out by the card companies, i insisted from the beginning that it was a fraud and a scam although Visa asked me to call Free & Easy to cancel i refused to give them the satisfaction of my calling their premium number. If lots of people insist that the card companies treat this as a scam they may realise it is causing them lots of headaches and might decide to stop doing business with them. It has taken me from the middle of October till now but the satisfaction I feel in not allowing Free&Easy to win as made all the hassle worthwhile. Good luck to all of you and don't let the b...........ds grind you down.

On checking my bank statement today £99.99 has been taken out of my account to FREE & EASY 6th Jan 2011.phoned them to see what it was for & was told I had agreed to join a membership with them.I have never heard of them or spoken to them before let alone agreed to pay them any money.

Tried to cancel but could not get through to a company rep. as stated in the small print on the reverse of the letter.

Also cancelled my membership after finally contacting a company rep.However my bank advised me to have a new debit card and pin number. as they have the details from my original card,which i've done so advise anyone else to do the same.I feel that the Daily Mail are at fault for allowing dodgy companys to use there advertising space.

Like yourself I ordered a household item (Airganix Ioniser) from a newspaper advert but actually ordered it online, it came from Pressplay some 3 weeks ago.  Today, 14 Jan 2011, the Free & Easy brochure arrived with the 30 day free trial and the £99.99 annual membership after that time.  I immediately phoned and cancelled the membership and the girl I spoke to (Amy on Ext 733 - she wouldn't give her surname!) and she said they wouldn't take the £99.99, I wasn't too convinced she was telling the truth though.  Straight after my call I phoned my bank and have cancelled the card I used, on checking the money has not been taken today!  OK so I will have to wait a week for a new card but feel assured that they cannot get any money from a cancelled card.  Its an absolute disgrace.  I am sending a stinking message to Pressplay Shopping tv.com today.

I ordered something from out of the newspaper & after i had received it had a phone call which my husband answered & not taking alot of notice agreed to receiving some sort of information through the post ( he did not give any bank details out)Anyway this FREE & EASY thing came & after reading it i was mortified.Went straight on line & found this forum.Well after reading what many people have said realised where it had come from,i have not bothered phoning them as i would not waste my money on this Scum.I rang my credit card company straight away & reported my card lost,so it is now cancelled so they will have a shock when they try & take the money.These SCUMBAGS need finding & sorting out it is not fair on us hard working people who go out & work hard for our money.

Sue, don't waste your time sending a message to Pressplay the directors of the company are the same they will just ignore it. If anything it may be better to write to the newspaper you saw the advert in.

recieved letter and brochure from  eFREEAAND EASYyesterday (Sat) Off to bank in the morning to hopefully stop the money being taken. HOW EVIL THESE PEOPLE ARE, THEY MUST BE STOPPED

Hi, received my bank statement yesterday, with a payment of £99.99 taken from my account by FREE & EASY 08712242255. Have just spent nearly 2 hours getting this sorted!!!! After ringing my bank & being told I needed to get in touch with the company myself, before the bank could set up a dispute. I then set about trying to find out HOW MUCH the call would cost me. Phoned BT 100, after having to hold for nearly half an hour, the lady managed to find out that the cost would be as follows:
FOR THE FRIST MINUTE IT WOULD BE 11.5p + 10.2p = 21.7p, THEN AFTER IT WOULD BE 10.2p FOR ANY FURTHER MINUTES. So if it takes 10 minutes for you to sort it out it will have cost you £1.13.5, compared to £99.99 cheap at half the price. I got on to my bank told them, & my bank phoned them for me & then put me through to speak to them. The company (you're aqctually talking to a Call Centre called Pressplay Ltd, I tried calling them direct on an 0800 number, didn't get me anywhere) agreed to refund me the money straight away, although this can take up to 10 days!! I'm not sure if I will have to pay any interest on this. After my experience I would advise you call them straight away & save yourself the agro, don't try arguing/complaining with them as it will only cost you more money!!! I did find out that it was through SPACE BAGS, they ring you up to check that their product is ok, then try to get you to agree to join this club, that you can save money on Leisure products. I do remember the call now! However I also remember saying I WAS NOT INTERESTED they still took my money. They say I would have received a brochure, & covering letter, I well may have, but it probably looked like junk mail, so I probably just binned it.

Had letter from fraud department of my bank on the 17/01/11. It said it was pleased to inform me that the fraud dispute has now been investigated and the case is now resolved and that they can therefore confirm that the temporary credit of £99.99 will now remain on your account. I take it that means I get to keep my money that this SCUM stole from me. WHY is nothing being done to STOP THESE COMPANY'S FROM DOING THIS FRAUD.I wish I could do more I still feel so angry and feel helpless to do anything. If anyone can find out what else we can do please put it on this site so we can stop this once and for all. I'm sorry for all of you that got ripped off. I'm too frightened to use my card to do anything now. The bank wanted me to have a credit card but I see that some people had it done on there credit cards so that want stop the SCUM either. Please anyone who has any idea to what else we can do please put on this posting. So they do it with debit cards and credit cards. I feel a prisoner not now being able to buy the odd thing I needed. It was only 7 items in 5 years using shopping channels. PLEASE be careful. It takes one bad lot to rip you off and who would of fault something as big as space bags would do it. A well known company or so I thought. Please keep information coming on to this site. Good luck to you all and please tell everyone you meet what this SCUM is up to and hopefully they will go out of business. That would be a result.

Yes got the same problem as everyone else who ordered from spacebags. Letter from free and easy recieved today. I mean passing your details to another company is one thing, but passing on your Bank details!

These people plus space bags must be stopped.

I ordered space bags back in November - received a follow up call to see if i was happy with the product but no mention of any further catalogue. My credit card statement shows a payment to FREE AND EASY  for £99.99  taken in January. No authorisation has been given for this payment to be taken. The cc company has cancelled my card so that no further payments can be taken. Beware buying spae bags - you too could be paying for more than you bargained for. Hope the fraudulent activity is stopped very soon.

brandy

Sorry to hear you got caught with the scam John. Make sure you get your card cancelled and inform your bank that they have done this to you. You must get a new card so they don't do it again to you and they could. They left it 1 and a half years before they scammed me. They had held on to debit card details for 1 and a half years and then took a chance I still had the same card details and hoped I wouldn't notice it and to be honest I'm so use to seeing the same things coming out on my bank statement I only glance normally but because payment for my carers was due out I looked to make sure it has come out and I noticed this free&easy. I never had a clue and was questioning my own sanity. If they had nothing to hide why are they not under the name as people would know them, ie Spacebags. If on my bank statement it had said spacebags original I would have known. I hope someone can put something on this site for us to contact the right people to stop them. My bank has just sent a letter saying they have dealt with it but haven't said if they are doing them for fraud. I need to know that they can stop them. Good luck and check all your statements to make sure they haven't done it before. It seems to be by reading these posts that they do it only once but who knows how many people haven't noticed it come out of there bank or like me think I must of got something and forgot what it was. I was at hospital the day they done it so I knew that I had not used my card. good luck John. Please keep us all updated of how you get on.

Hi Barbie,
one and a half years is a long time they tend to operate within a couple of months. If you still have your statements from a year ago see if anything was taken out by a company called Break 4 Free, or maybe even Travelsteps club, these are the same company they just change the name every year or 2.

I spent ages compiling the email below and sent it to the email address on their website - to have it returned as a delivery failure.

"How dare you take £99.99 from my credit card account, HOW DARE YOU ! You have taken this money and given me nothing in return - not that I want anything from you I expect to have a phone call from you as
soon as your receive this email and furthermore DEMAND AN IMMEDIATE REFUND TO MY ACCOUNT. PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU REMOVE MY CREDIT CARD DETAILS FROM YOUR FILES OR I WILL TAKE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST YOU. Any reputable company will delete credit card details from their files once the goods have been despatched.I have done my research and discovered you regularly carry out this underhand and illegal practise.I ordered Spacebags from you months and months and months via a TV campaign and paid for them in full. You have no right to be on TV conning people like this.
Someone called me several weeks ago and asked if I was happy with them and I said I was not happy with the hanging bags as the air kept escaping. I was told that I should have sent them back as they were under guarantee for full satisfaction. I said "oh well, it's too late now". At no time during that phone call or any other time was I asked for, or gave details of my card number again or authorised for any further payments to be made. I have never dealt with such an abominable bunch of crooks and will never purchase another thing from you even if it is the best thing ever manufactured.  I even recommended the bags to friends but will contact them immediately telling them to be aware of your scheming tactics and will also ensure I warn everyone I meet not to do any business with you EVER"

As you can tell from the above I am furious and will probably not sleep tonight because of this !

Hi. You will see from my posting of 24 December 2010 that I was a victim of this scam. I contacted Barclaycard, telling them that they should not have paid out to Free & Easy as they are well known scammers.
I have now had a letter from Barclaycard saying that I have got a refund from Free & Easy.
I think everyone should write to their credit/debit card company, saying they should not pay out to Free & Easy, as they are a scam. That is the only way to stop this scam.
Gordon.