PSA: Complaints against OlaPrice.com Unfair Practices Rising

PSA: Complaints against OlaPrice.com Unfair Practices Rising

Couple of years ago, Streeldeal.sg was embroiled in numerous incidents, with many of the complaining customers claimed they had been scammed into paying for the membership due to the way information was presented on the site. A similar website, Olaprice.com has emerged with similar complaints on unfair business practices.

Same Same But Different

streetdeal-olaprice

The company behind Streetdeal.sg, Asia Deal Group Pte Ltd have now set up a new merchant deal website – called Olaprice.com with the similar style premium membership model. Yet, this website of around 3 months old have seen a number of complaints floating around already. Other Olaprice complaints can also be found at Complaints Board. The folks over at Hardwarezone.com tend to be more savvy shoppers, and if they could miss out the fine print on the premium membership sign up, do you think your parents, wife, less IT savvy friends would miss it as well?

I think this comic sums it up pretty well.

51_free_hugs

From Olaprice’s website :

Membership are entitled to an additional 20% off on all offers, free purchase insurance and exclusive flash sales offer. The quarterly charge is $88, and non-refundable. New members are entitled to a 2-day free trial and you would be automatically billed after the two day trial period ends. I browsed the items without the exclusive premium tag but was not able to select the non-member price.

Their page may have recently been updated. When you first load the page, the top deals are arranged with the premium flash deals on top. These are exclusive to their premium members. When scrolled to the bottom on conditions of the purchase, there is normally this line which should indicate to you that something is off. “The deal is exclusive to Ola Premium Members. By purchasing this deal you agree with the Terms & Conditions of OlaPrice and its subscription terms.” As you attempt to check out, I noted one instance of the $88 charge. There is the banner but it looks more like an introduction to Olaprice premium services and not indicative that you would be signing up as a premium member.

When in Doubt, Obfuscate

olaprice-premium

For normal deals, they appear as such. Which has an added indication of the Olaprice premium membership. Even if you untick the top box, the acceptance of the membership $88 charge is forced upon you with the other terms and conditions.

olaprice-normal

However, unlike other web shopping portals, they bury the details of this $88 charge into check boxes and finer details. The indicative check out charge also fails to include the $88 charge. This will be billed to the credit card separately. Potentially, you may even miss out that you had been charged $88 for the quarterly premium membership fee.

What You Can Do If You Are an Unwitting Olaprice Premium Member :

1) First thing first, login to your account and cancel the premium membership renewal. Look for the button that is helpfully named “Cancel”.

2) Next, you can try contacting their customer service but their default response seems to be along the lines of:

“Please be informed since you did not cancel their membership after our given trial period, you were charged for the membership fee on the last day of the trial period and then every quarter.
As stated in Ola Premium Terms and Conditions which you agreed to, as explained above, all membership fees are not refundable.”

If you go to the Terms of Service link in the footer, there is no mention of the details of the OlaPrice premium. Instead, you would need to navigate to the OlaPrice premium, scroll all the way down to the check box and look for the Subscription terms for the premium membership subscription terms. Excellent navigation arrangement.

3) Instead, you may want to try to bring up to your credit card issuing company and seek a block on the transaction. That would be along the lines of purchase protection but your mileage may vary.

4) Another option is to do a police report. You might be advised to go to CASE as well, but honestly, I would give it a miss. CASE doesn’t have judiciary powers and after the Jover Chew saga, do you think they can be of any help?

5) Take the $88 as a painful lesson and move on, share with your friends and relatives of your unfortunate experience so that they do not make the same mistake. The influence of word of mouth is a effective tool to combat such unclear business practices, sharing is caring.

38 Replies to “PSA: Complaints against OlaPrice.com Unfair Practices Rising”

  1. I fell for this.
    Does that mean that there is nothing I can do to get back my money?

    1. Hi Krishna – that’s unfortunate to hear.
      Suggest you file a dispute with your credit card company as an unauthorised charge.

      you can try approaching the company too, but may end up going around in circles.

    3. OlaPrice is crap.
      They refunded the premium membership in Ola dollars.
      Ok never mind. I made a purchase because I didn’t read the fine prints….but seriously nobody would have noticed it.

      Ok my order did not arrive.
      I asked them….they say already delivered.
      I told them….yes I ordered 2 items. 1’was delivered, the other was not.
      They didn’t even bother to check.

      You better keep your correspondence with them as proof.

      Ok…then they say refund in cash to my credit card.
      Ok….then I realized later that $1.70 in cash and the rest of $54 in ola dollars.

      I say, why would I need ola dollars when you can’t even fulfill the delivery?
      They say it’s mgmt.

      I say one word….CRAP
      CRAP COMPANY! CRAP SERVICE! CRAP ETHICS! CRAP ATTITUDES

  2. Me too! So mad! The arrogant overtone in the customer service email response made me even more angry. I plan to tell everyone I ini about this scam and not to use them. Thanks for the article! Should have researched the company before purchasing. Never had one of these “membership” type things at an online store before :/

    1. Ya! The Olaprice customer service sounds terrible. Sharing and educating is probably the best way against them now.

      Hope you can get your money back or file a credit card dispute.

  3. I am feeling so so angry at this scam! Never would have believed something like this is possible in Singapore. Had I not looked into my credit card statement, I wouldn’t have known as well. This is definitely crossing a line.

    Having read your article, I can see no solution. Is there really no solution to this scam?

    1. Update to my case- My bank (HSBC) raised a dispute regarding this transaction and I managed to get my 88$ back. Very relieved.

  4. have you file a credit card dispute? That looks to be the best option to get your money back.

    The other solutions are more of awareness and also to use a limited payment credit card for new websites, I will share some examples in a coming post soon.

    1. Hi. Any one can update if there is any successful case to get back the money after filing for credit card dispute?
      Is there any government department can we make a complaint against all these sales tactic ?

  6. Hi, is there really no way to claim back the money? I damn angry on this as I have been charged for twice! One is from STREETDEAL the other one is from OLAPRICE! I’ve lost total S$176.00. Aren’t this two is under same group? Why they charge me twice?

  7. I am another victim of olaprice. got the same response with screenshot saying i have checked the button which ask for my confirmation to charge me $88 for premium membership. Still trying to fight out. Let me see where i reach.

  8. Please be careful. This is really bad. This is what i have got email from them.
    Sure, two days is enough time to fall in love with Ola Premium. But just when you are getting used to enjoy an additional 20% discount on an unlimited number of purchases, your free trial will be over and you’ll be charged. So don’t forget if you don’t want to continue your free trial you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking “Cancel” button in your account, if you do not unsubscribe you will be charged Quarterly SGD 88 at the end of the free trial period. 

    1. Thanks for sharing Jai. Seems like now they are at least sending out an information email on the trial. Hope that at least help prevent more people to detect their tactic!

      1. It should be if we are keen on a real deal. We will sign up subscription and fill up our credit card. I dont think anyone need the 20% for 3 months unless they are buying these stuff for business opening.

  9. Thanks guys for sharing.

    I just purchased a thing in Olaprice. Luckily I have read the email from olaprice as Jai mentioned. So I cancelled my Membership subscription less than an hour of purchase and received a confirmation email from Olaprice saying My Premium membership is cancelled. Hope I have escaped from this unusual trap..

    I reckon this the only option left to salvage.

    1. Hopefully you manage to cancel in time! otherwise, file for credit card dispute? let us know if you succeeded!

  11. I have been scammed too!!! Super angry as well. I have also raised a dispute with the bank. Please share if anyone succeeds in getting a refund or wins the dispute.

  13. I raised a dispute with my bank who had refunded the amount first and went to discuss with the merchant. Just 2 days ago, OlaP came back to me saying they were going to refund.

    So I’m lucky I got it back :)

      1. DBS Bank.

        Just keep pushing the bank first for them to raise a dispute.

    2. OMG! I was worst.. CHARGED me $88 TWICE! I checked my bank statement only recently.. Look like I have to go to Citibank to raise the dispute. Beware of Rivalife too. They are from the same company as StreetDeal and OlaPrice. Even the “customer service” from StreetDeal is the same as OlaPrice. That is why I was scammed TWICE by StreetDeal and OlaPrice.

  14. Date: 10 July 2015 (Fri)

    I think someone should really look into this company ‘Olaprice.com’. They reliability and “honest” dealing is deeply in-doubt! They advertised of their website of Flash Sale product and I brought the item on 24 June 2015. Payment has been made and the seller can reply saying delivery will take up to 14 days (I am fine with 14 days) but till date, each time i check in with him … he always replied saying he needs to check. I wondered how many times does he need to check. Greatly feeling disappointed when he told me will request to expedite the delivery but THERE IS NO ASSURANCE that they can deliver the item right away.

    What is this? U are doing a business and is this right after payment received? I started to worry about my purchase after I read many bad reviews of Olaprice.com and that’s how it triggered me to better follow up with my delivery.

    If this dealer’s website is a Scam, I would like to seek the authority to seriously look into this company profile for their credibility before more people fall into it!

    Thank you.

  16. I am also the victim and only realise this after the second charge. No phone number to call. What can we do to get back our money. Everyone else should be aware also. I have just posted on my facebook but more should be done to stop this unethical practise. There will more victim, if no one stop this. Anyone know what can be done?

  17. I’m also one of those that was scammed. Spoke to the credit card company(HSBC) and they say that they cannot do anything.
    Maybe we should all report to the police and if we have the numbers, the police might look into it.

  18. I am also the victim from OlaPrice, please see below for the “official’ reply from olaprice

    Thank you for contacting OlaPrice with your enquiry.

    Please find the explanation of the charge(s) in question below.

    On 10/08/2015, you purchased a voucher for this offer: Flash Sales Premium: Revoflex Xtreme Exercise Roller.

    During your transaction, you were given an option to become a Premium member. This option gives customers a direct 20% discount and additional Premium member benefits (full list of benefits here: https://www.olaprice.com/home/get_premium).

    The details of Premium and the charges associated with it were listed for your confirmation on our checkout page. I have attached a screenshot for your reference where you can see these details, and the confirmation box that must be clicked to join Premium. By clicking this box, you acknowledged that you have read our T&Cs and that you agreed with all charges associated with Premium.

    These details were also sent to the email address you registered with on OlaPrice once your purchase was made. Following that, a second email with the same information was sent for your review the day your credit card was charged for the Premium membership fee.

    I note that you have already cancelled your membership on 21/08/2015. Effective from 13/11/2015, you will no longer have access to the exclusive deals and discounts that our Premium members enjoy.

    As stated in the Premium Membership T&Cs which you agreed to and as explained above, all membership fees are non-refundable.

    Do not hesitate to contact us should you have any further enquiry

  19. Scammed and furious. I was a victim of Rivalife. I bought a $9 item on July 26th and was charged of $88 on July 29th for that premium. I normally dont check my cc in detailed, browse through my statement and found SDeal which is not familiar to me. I called the bank right away and was advised to block the card to avoid any subsequent charge. After confirming to the bank that this is related to an online purchase I checked my email and found the notice send on July 29th that I was automatically charge for the premium membership. The email subject “Enjoy your riva premium benefit”
    I immediately send email to Rivalife and as expected they reply using the normal template they send to all the victim. I just hope they shut down their site or facebook will finally block this bogus company.

  20. This is the WORSE online website I had ever visited. Their Flash Sale or Premium Sale look like a good deal but behind is a big SCAM system. In order to purchase their item, you have to (A MUST) tick and agree on the Terms & Conditions which include hidden membership fees of $88 per annum. You will only get to know when you receive your bank statement which is too late. Ola Price will not refund in cash, their “cunning way” is to refund in their Ola credits which you have to use their credit to purchase non promotional items. When you purchase their Flash Sales or Premium Sale items, they charge you the membership fees AGAIN!! Which you could not un-click anywhere while you check out. PLEASE BEWARE AND NEVER TRUST OR VISIT THIS WEBSITE AGAIN!!!