800-511-6538

not a call, but three charges to my debit card.

Not a call. This number is SmartSavingsCenter.com, also known as DiscountBookSale.com.
There were three surprise charges to my debit card account, which I later tracked down to be a membership fee. When you sign up to purchase any book from DiscountBookSale.com, you are required to make a membership-- only the first 7 days are free, after which there is a $29.95 monthly membership fee, and a $1.00 monthly membership processing fee. All of this is in the fine print in the confirmation email after registering a membership.

... Yeah. I'll be reading ALL my emails more carefully from now on, and sticking to local bookstores.

I see that they made a 'purchase' in my checking account on 1/5/09 for $1, and another for $29.95 on 01/10/09, causing my checking acct to be overdrawn.  this is costing me $25 in overdraft fees.

How do we contact 'smartsavingscenter' besides this 800-511-6538?

From https://www.discountbooksale.com/store/checkOut2.aspx "1-866-707-5858 to cancel, and you'll no longer be charged".  When we called last month to make sure there would be no more charges, we were told no problem and given a confirmation number.  However, the promised confirmation email never came and we just had another charge today.  I'm not surprised actually, Smartsavings/Discountbooksale is on the Ripoff report and other websites.  Reports say that you're lucky to get a live person at all, and even if you do you keep getting charged.  We will be contacting our bank to change our account information.

We Just bought books for Christmas from this place they sent the books poorly wrapped and said they would be at our house by the 23 of December if we order by the 17 of the same month well we did not get the books until the 31 of December and the box the books were in looked like they soaked it in water. The company is in Boca Raton but the operator is out sourced to the west indies. They basically told us they would not refund our money but said to mail the books back to them but we had to pay for the shipping and they would inspect the product to see if it's worthy of refund. How  are people and companies getting away with this. Its not the 1960's I called the FBI and BBB I got no help from either. Their thought is just don't by from them well not Sh*T Sherlock I'm 40 I figured that one out. I wanted to report and give them the website address they could have cared less.

Make sure you cancel online at smartsavingscenter.com and over the phone. If you dont do both, they will continue to charge you (at least in my case). I bought a text book from discountbooks.com and the next day received an email stating that the book was not in stock, further down in the email I noticed the "membership" crap and cancelled the next day over the phone. that was 1/13/09. Today, I went on my bank account and realized there were two service charges, one on 1/12 and the other on 1/17! After I thought I had canceled my 'membership'. So when I called them today to ask WTF they told me to go on thier website and cancel that way as well otherwise you are not really cancelled from the membership.So Im hoping thats the end of it, I willjust have to wait and see.Also be carefull because I have been reading other posts online and saw that smartsavingscenter.com is also on common websites like amazon,walmart,etc. So just be careful and read the fine print before you buy anything. Its too bad that we have to deal with this.

These complaints are all over the net. I cancelled my membership within the allotted time frame of 7 days and was charged the membership fee TWICE at 29.95 each. I received a cancellation confirmation - however, still got charged. All attempts to contact were in vain. The passowrd given did not allow to sign in to file a complaint ticket. No responses to my emails other than an automatic "do not reply to this email" message. We have to report you to the BBB and the Consumer Protection Agency. My Credit Card Company has been informed of your lack of supply and a dispute will be filed. Believe me: You will not get away with this.

I have a exactly same with you.
How did you solve this problem?
I think I have to call this number to cancle the merbership which I didn't recognize...

fraud fraud fraud i bought a dvd and then months later my card was charged good thing i checked my back account i am FURIOUS!! on the phone with them now

tried to call smartsavingscenter but line always busy.

Bought a book from them and found a charge of 29.95 and 1.00 on my Visa along with the book cost.
how did you solve this?

Susie

I have been scammed also.  I purrchased a dvd on 1/18/09 and later realized about the membership charged. During that time, I was charged for the dvd $17.xx. I was also charged a $1 processing fee for membership.  I made the cancellation on 1/20/09. Just today, I was charged another $1 and i was told it was a charge for the processing of the dvd which I never got.

Anyways, since I am using a debit card from wamu, they couldn't do much except to cancel my debit card and issue me a new card.  The thing I learned from wamu is that I made the purchased using the old debit card, but smartsavingscenter still was able to charge the recent fee off of the old card (expiration of card doesn't mean it cannot be charged-wtf).

Tony

Same problems with them - bought a DVD on 1/15/09.  On 1/22/09 I checked my Visa statment to make sure my recent payment I made was applied and saw a SmartSavingsCenter.com charge on there as well as the HotMovieSale.com purchse.  No where during the checkout does it tell you that you are automatically signing up for a a "membership" - I called (apparently I got very luck and got through) - spoke to Angelina who said that it was not a membership fee but a "tranaction" fee for processing my order - bull - that should have been part of the original DVD transaction!!  After some arguement they credited me back, however there is another membership fee on my Visa for the month of February that I found yesterday.  Again, Angelina argued with me that they did not charge me a second time even though I had it in black and white in front of me.  Don't do business with them!!!  They claim that they don't even have emails so I can provide them with the proof that they charged me again, however I did get a fax number - 561-989-4401, but with my experience with them it might be a fake number.  My next step is to cancel my Visa and open a new account if they continue to process fees to the card.

How did you unsubscribe from the monthly charges? I cannot find anything through "my account" or on their webite.

I have been scammed as well. I purchased a book for $7 on 2/08/09, received an e-mail receipt for $7, but was charged three times (the book + $1 + $29.95) on 2/08, 2/09, and 2/15. I called them on 2/17 but they refused to refund the charges saying that I should have called earlier. I have filed a dispute through American Express.

Same thing here.  Looked at my credit card statement and had a $1 charge, $6.35 [for the book I ordered], $29.95 for membership, and then another $1 charge.

I called and they said I would receive my $29.95 fee back [oh, lucky me!] and they did send an email to confirm.  I also cancelled online as someone else had suggested.

What scammers.  I never agreed to a membership, they just tacked it on at the end.

go to the site www.toddsingleton.net and he explains how to cancel  , apparently, he was scammed by smartsavingcenter.com too. so was I !! I Even contacted agencies about their deceptive business practices myself. I hope this helps.

how do i get out of the smart savings center

how did you get out of it?

The only way is to cancel your credit card and have a new number issued