Old and Dumb

I am an idiot sometimes. You’d think getting older you’d get wiser but that’s not always the case.

I’m big on positive body image but even I sometimes fail at being a confident woman.

Recently (a few days after my birthday) I fell for an internet scam and I feel like I should share it with you because others may fall for it. This is my own stupid story.

I was on Facebook; scrolling and sighing at life, as I often do. Must have been feeling down trodden that day because I saw an advert on Women’s Health (the magazine/website) and I clicked to read the story. It was about two products; Ketone Silm XT and the Cleanse product that came affiliated.

The writer on the website claimed she tried this product and it helped her cleanse and detox, losing weight in the process. I was wowed by the pictures of this ‘writer’ and thought the product sounded great. When I was clicking on the links to buy the product (paying only for the postage because the product was ‘free trial’) I thought it was some sort of tea that helped you cleanse naturally; like BooTea or Fit Tea, y’know?

After paying for postage I clicked on another link and found that the thing was a scam. It was weight loss tablets (which I didn’t realise) and the article wasn’t really from Women’s Health but a fake website! How are people so crafty? How can I be so stupid?

It all looked legit until I google searched the image of the women who’d lost weight and found she was someone who’d done it the natural way and the website had stolen her image and used her as a poster girl!

I immediately emailed the people and told them to cancel – do not take money from my account!

A couple of weeks later I realised about £140 had been taken from my account and it was set up as a monthly fee! Like, what?!

I hate having to do grown up things like call the bank but I did. I emailed the company AGAIN and told them to stop or face legal action and I called Halifax (my bank) and told them what had happened.

Luckily I wasn’t the only one dumb enough to fall for it (even a colleague of mine fell for a similar scam at the same time!) – my bank refunded me the money and told me they’d contact the scammers for the money back. They told me I had 14 days to cancel so I could still do it with them (I’d heard if it was outside of 14 days they refused to give money back). They were so helpful and understanding even though I’d been so dumb!

I then called the company and told them I wanted to cancel – thankfully they said they’d received my email (not the first one, mind you, but the second one that threatened legal action) and they had cancelled my payments. I asked for emailed evidence, which they said they’d sent (I had nothing) so I asked them to send again and they also confirmed my cancellation references for my records. Thankfully my threatening emails did the trick!

I now have my money back and the subscription they set up (Without my knowledge) has been cancelled but I’ve heard some people never get that first payment back.

So, there you have it. I’m dumb. I feel like an idiot for even thinking that ‘free samples’ could help me lose weight but that’s what they do; manipulate the body conscious.

Lesson learned; thanks Universe!

Sam