I did it.

You know those ads that you see all over Facebook these days – the ones where a person’s wrinkles and bags disappear in the space of minutes while they fan their face? It’s all due to the fabulous cream they dab on in minuscule amounts. I’ve watched several of these “shows” over the past few months and decided it was time to see if they were giving me the straight scoop. I have good enough skin for someone my age but there are times when I’d like to make a few things go away. I ordered some.

But I waited until I got a good deal – a free sample with the only cost being the shipping and handling. I will try anything (not really) for $5 if it’s compelling enough. And then I left the country for two weeks where I couldn’t get on the internet easily and the husband, at home, was left in charge of the mail.

“Hey, you got a box with some skin creams or something in the mail.” Along with “There are some charges on our credit card that are strange. Did you order something from Beauty Store Online?” It was hard to deal with it from the other side of the world so I made a mental note to self. Self, when you get home, make sure these charges aren’t more than postage, and figure out what the strange part is.

Today was the day. Perusing our credit card statement, I found there were actually five charges, from three different company names, with three telephone numbers. Two were around $100 and three were $5 and under. So I started called the associated phone numbers to find out what was going on. At three of the numbers the same recording was played followed by some waiting music and then a hang up. At the fourth number, I connected with a real voice, from India most likely.

Fortunately, I could understand his English pretty well. And he could understand mine well enough to find my account and verify the charges. Next, he heard me ask for the account to be closed and the charges taken off. According to script, I’m sure, he offered the following information:

They didn’t have sample sizes, and the product needed to be used for longer to see results, so of course, they sent full size product. Didn’t I want to see results?

Next, I hadn’t responded to tell them how I liked the product so they had charged me for it. But since I was only expecting a sample (as stated in the ad) they would give me a chance to buy more at 50% off.

Next, okay if I didn’t want more. They would close my account and send me email verification. I would only pay for the product received.

Next, in my case (and only my case, mind you) they would take 50% off the price, since I was so upset.

Next, by special permission they would take 75% off the price.

As I was once again, calmly, telling them to close the account and take all the charges off or I was going to file a dispute with the credit card company, the connection was lost. Actually, I was kind of surprised that I stayed connected as long as I did. Almost every call I make gets dropped at least once, thank you Verizon.

Do you ever get surprises like this? I guess I deserved it. Most of the time I ignore ads, knowing that life can get complicated pretty quickly over the internet, with credit cards, and unproven companies. Yeah, I deserved it. Thankfully, the credit card dispute person was very helpful and compassionate and I ended up with no doubt that the whole matter will be resolved to my satisfaction.

I’m a Mary Kay girl and am sticking with what works (I even sell it – shame on me for experimenting). I’m going to work on loving my wrinkles and taking good care of them. Just sayin’, buyer beware….