I ordered business cards a few weeks ago from VistaPrint.com. I used a unique email address like I always do. I opted out of allowing them to share my info. I also (like anywhere I give my address, phone number, credit card number) opted out of any sharing. For now I also allowed Vistaprint to email me special deals.
Well, between placing the order on March 29, 2007, and today. I’ve received 16 email offers for various things. That’s a ton, but not a problem. I signed up for them.
But just now I received a telemarketing call from Web Site Pros. Luckily the sales lady mentioned they got my info from Vistaprint. I asked her to put me on their do not call list. (Hey – they violated the DNC! I had no prior relationship with them.)
I then checked my account preferences at Vistaprint. The only option there is for email opt out. I called Customer Service, spoke with Martin. I explained my frustration that they sold my phone number, and said I had opted out. He said, no you only opted out of email sharing. There is no option on the web site to opt-out (or opt-in) of phone and address sharing. I have closed my account with Vistaprint. Martin said he closed the account, but I can still access it from the web site.
Here are the relevant sections of their privacy policy:
If you check the applicable box on registration or in updating your account, VistaPrint may also share personally identifiable information about you such as your name, telephone number, e-mail address, and/or mailing address with carefully selected third-party organizations such as retailers or direct marketers to enable those organizations to inform you about products or services that might be of interest to you. If you do not wish to have your information shared with these organizations, simply do not check the applicable box on the registration form or on the “Account Update” page on our website.
The only boxes on the Account Update” deal with email.
We will not share your personally identifiable information, such as your e-mail address or name, with unaffiliated organizations for them to use to inform you about their or other companies’ products and services unless you consent to this sharing on registration or in updating your account preferences. You may opt in by checking the appropriate box during registration or, following registration, by logging into “My Account,” selecting “Account Update,” and checking the applicable box.
I never opted in to allowing them to share my info, so they have violated their policy. Shady dealings, violations of their own privacy policy, and having a third party break the DNC. That’s enough. I encourage you to not use Vistaprint, I do not believe that they can be trusted.
Vistaprint sucks.
I called the # my credit card company gave me and after some run around I got my $$ back. Good luck!!
DON”T USE VISTAPRINT!!! They somehow managed to charge my credit card $14.95 every month until i realized what it was. They said they are refunding my money, but I’ll believe it when I see it!
You aren’t the only ones affected by this online theft. Below is from Wikipeidia, Hopefully, the suits will cost Vistaprint big bux for allowing such to happen:
In August 2008, the company announced that class action lawsuits relating to the membership discount programs offered by third party merchants on VistaPrint’s USA website have been filed against VistaPrint USA, Inc., VistaPrint Corp., and two third party merchants (Vertrue Inc. and its subsidiary Adaptive Marketing LLC) in Texas and New Jersey.[55] Two additional class-action suits were subsequently filed in both Massachusetts and Alabama. The four complaints, all filed in federal courts, allege that the defendants are in violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (which protects from unauthorized charges) and the federal Electronic Communications and Privacy Act (which prohibits the unlawful access of financial information). “As we allege in the complaint, we believe that VistaPrint and Vertrue are acting in concert to access consumers’ credit card information and then begin charging them relatively small amounts,” says Jerome Noll, counsel for the plaintiff that filed the Massachusetts suit. “You’re talking about $14.95 a month or $12.95 a month, hoping that consumers just won’t notice.” [56]
The Wikipedia page on Vistaprint is at Vistaprint at Wikipedia
vista print has sent me plenty of spam and has charged me 3 times for shipping. i only ordered once and i only recieved one package, yet they keep charging me for shipping. WHATCH OUT!
This company was very difficult to deal with for me, but I ended up ordering anyway… lots of run around! lots and lots of runaround!!
If you order from them, my suggestion is use Paypal, that way there is no compromise on credit card info.
I could access Paypal payment option on Firefox, but not some other browsers.
Thanks, after reading this im not too sure about getting business cards printed through Vistaprint anymore 🙂 Thanks for the heads up
Wow! Sorry to see I’m in such good company.
After doing business with VistaPrint:
Month 1: BusinessMax 14.95
Month 1: ShoppingEssen 14.95
Month 2: BusinessMax 14.95
Had to cancel my Credit Card.
I feel raped.
This is a open letter to vistaprint management please post it for me
————————————————–
Is VistaPrint a Sweat Shop?
Dear Messrs,
These are a few questions to you the heads of a leading online printing company.
• How can you all sleep well at nights knowing that you are running a sweat shop operation in Montego Bay, where workers are forced to work on their days off or face dismissals?
• Forced to do overtime, or face ‘term’ as you guys call it?
• Mr.Robert Keane, and company, can you tell me where in the United States of America you or any other company could do that?
Tardiness should never be a practice. But please answer this question,
• Why is it alright for us to be at work, ready to start working as the clock strikes at the beginning of our shift, but we have to ask our ‘masters’ if we can go to the restroom,or take a so-called scheduled break? Why is it that we cannot take an half hour to take care of urgent business but we are forced to be at work on a Saturday or a Sunday (the only time we get to take care of our business, granted most of the commercial establishments in Jamaica are close on those days)?
• Why is it that we are reviewed for termination if the Jamaican Law stipulated 10 sick days are exhausted, yet Dan River and company force employees to work overtime in contravention of Jamaican Law?
• Where did you all get the idea, when the Jamaican government invited you all to invest in our country, that it was ok for persons to leave their families/kids and their personal business (oh yes, we black people have a life outside of VistaPrint too) unattended to attend seminars or training during unscheduled work times? Oops, pardon me please, how could I forget about the service level? Oh, pardon please dear Mighty ones, you all don’t care about a bunch of niggas and their kids and their personal business. After all the statistics show that the majority of them will become criminals and be incarcerated in short order, anyway.
• It is not our fault that the only family some of you have are of the canine and feline species.
• Is that the reason you want us to do back-flips for this company that does not even respect the majority of the staff here in Jamaica, the equivalent of the minimum wage in the U.S?
Mr. Keane, sir, I understand you make yearly visits to Jamaica to gloat about how much money you’ve made and hope to make by 2010. I heard that you usually open the floor for questions.
• However has it ever occured to you that the questions that you are asked are usually very ‘vague’ for the most part? Do you think that you could at least ask the ‘nappy head niggas’ what’s really happening on their level? Do you know that the ‘niggas’ all get an email before entering your meeting stating that we should only ask questions about your ‘presentation’? Did you know that there are persons planted in each meeting to take note of anyone who ask “inappropriate” questions?
Question to Dan Rivera
• Mr.Dan Rivera, when has it become ‘ok’ for a Director of a company to find out why an employee did not turn up for a training session scheduled for a Saturday- a non-Vistaprint workday?
• In which of the 50 states of the U.S. and its territories ( does this happen in Puerto Rico?) is it ok, for workers to be verbally (and in writing) be reprimanded for not coming to work on one of their days off, after working a full 40 hour work week?
• What gives you the impression that the majority of staff in Jamaica are stupid and desperate?
Oh, here comes your favorite quip, ‘do or go’.
Address to the Government of Jamaica and the INTERNATIONL LABOUR ORGANIZATION
• How can the government of Jamaica allow foreigners to ill-treat workers and get away with it.
• The State has failed us.
• Is this what Lou Dobbs speaks about on his program? U.S. companies going off-shore so they can pay workers little to nothing and turn around and treat them like dirt?
• So Phillip Paulwell had all the screw ups with the Intech Fund, but he also left a legacy of a Foreign based company who brainwashes workers into thinking that they cannot join a Union because ‘workers of Freezone companies’ can’t get unionized.’ Therefore companies like VistaPrint can come here and accuse an employee of stealing money or information, then when their story cannot be substantiated puppet rulers like the Jamaican Human Resources team tells the employee, ‘well we did tell you in the agreement you signed (which is not a contract) that we can dismiss you “at will”, therefore this is one of those “at will” moments.
• Mr. Paulwell is no longer at the helm. The baton has now passed to you Mr. Charles, Mr. Samuda, Mr. Golding.
• What will it take for you guys to step up to the plate? A revolution? Our forefathers did it and we can!
• Jamaica Gleaner; Jamaica Observer, Radio Jamaica, Western Mirror, Nationwide News Network, CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, TBN, New York Times, LA Times, are you all waiting until the civil disobedience starts before you guys give us a voice.
Warm Jamaican Regards,
cc.
Hon. O. Bruce Golding, PM
Most Hon. Portia Simpson-Miller
Hon. Pearnel Charles, MP
Hon. Karl Samuda, MP
Messrs. Lloyd B. Smith, Cliff Hughes, Phillip Paulwell
I, too, have received hundreds of spam emails to the tagged email address that was ONLY supplied to VistaPrint.
Is there any way we can start a class action lawsuit for their wholesale selling of personal contact information?
– Tim
VistaPrint activated two membership services against my MasterCard without my knowledge or consent that resulted in $119.60 of fraudulent changes. Two companies Bussnessmax, and Shoppingessen (both owned by Adaptive Marketing) began charging my account for services I never approved or requested.
Let me clear when I say – I DID NOT OPT IN, REQUEST, OR APPROVE of ANY MEMBERSHIP SERVICES…period.
This company is shameful. I will never do business with them again.
Vistaprint sucks and have bad customer service! I order some products from them six days ago and paid extra to have them printed and delivered to me with in 7 days. I called on the sixth day to check my order to only find out that they could not print part of my order. I asked why wasn’t I informed of this issue and their response was, we do not have anyone to call people back on their orders. So if I did not call I would not have known that my order was not going to be delivered in time for a presentation I have in 2 days. Wow talk about how I just got screwed by visitaprint! I now have nothing to present with my presentation on Saturday. They have truly put me in a bind!
I was performing my routine ‘unsubscribing’ on my junk eMail acct. when I came across Vista Print. I have NEVER ordered from them. There IS NO way to opt-out of their spam without creating an account, which then gives them the right to spam you, during the acct creation process.
There are NO contact phone numbers, or email addresses I can find without creating an acct.
May these bastards die of horrid diseases at a young age.
G
I am an employee from Vista Print, and all I can say, without identifying myself to them, is it is a terrible place to work. Most employees that aren’t management hate it, only work there because the pay is good, and no where else to work around Windsor Ontario. All three shifts have crappy times, days 6-2, midnights 10-6, afternoons 2-10, but you start afternoons on Sunday. They make it so you don’t have a life on any of the shifts! Then there is the mandatory overtime every other weekend at the least. So the money is there to make, but you won’t have a family life at all, you even work on Family Day! lol You have to book vacation in week blocks, and have to book your vacations almost a year in advance. You have a strict attendance policy. Very Strict! Printing is a trade, but about 90% of the pressman they have, never even saw a press until they started working there, that is why the product is garbage. Use cheap stock, the presses are poorly maintained, so they don’t print properly, well, they manufacture is what they say, not print. It is all about how fast you can run jobs, not how nice they look. One more thing, the employees have to park about 2km away from entrance, while management and office people get to park a few feet to their entrance. You get two 10 min breaks and a 30 min lunch, woohoo, I wish people realized that this company sucks, and then no one would buy anything from these idiots!!!
Wow! I placed an order from Vista trying to save a few bucks. It ended up costing me more in the end. The cards were more spotty than if I printed them on my laser printer in the office. I actually called them and complained and they said I needed to purchase their “premium” cards. Yeah right! That’s what I get for trying to save $10 lol.
I hate these guys.
I was actually amazed by their free offers, I loved the way they packaged the stuff I ordered, everything is awesome. And then one thing started bugging me. Man, didn’t I see $50 Google Adwords credit in my Cart?
Yes I did.
But where is it? I don’t have it. So I e-mailed their support, they got back to me after 7 days with some lobotomized answer. Eventually, after 3-4 more mails (a month had passed), they “manually put the Google Adwords credit in my Cart, ready for my next order”. It would be order #3.
And there it was, in my Cart. It even increased to $75. Cool. But…as soon as I clicked “Checkout”, the item just disappeared from my cart. One month later I’m still talking to their customer service which is just awful.
Vistaprint seriously sucks. And this thing with Google Adwords credit disappearing from the Cart is downright illegal.
F you Vistaprint. We should just keep ordering their freebies, paying only for the S&H, to make them print hundreds of thousands of unpaid items to put them out of business.
I have had 2 websites through Vistaprint. I signed up there because it was fast and easy to get the site up even though it’s expensive. Well, you DON’T get what you pay for at vistaprint:
They did work on their servers on Oct 8, 2011 and at that moment, my 2 websites, AND EMAIL went down – CRASHED – It’s been down for 4 days and no one can do anything until the “tech staff” works on it. I can’t even move my domain out of there. It’s locked too. No website, no email (I get 40 emails per day).
I can’t even sue them because I agreed to hold them harmless when I signed up.
If you use Vistaprint, eventually, you will be harmed and they will not care or do anything.
Hello Everyone,
Why would anyone go with a company like this, if a consumer is looking to get something printed first of all keep your business local(I own a local print shop in Vienna, VA) People don’t understand they can get the same price if not better and much better service and quality going with someone locally. Please support your local business you will be amazed at what you can get for your money.
My 12 yr old daughter completed a babysitting class and we thought it would be neat to get her some business cards to pass out to family and neighbors…We ordered some “free” cards from VistaPrint. Big mistake! In the past 2 years, my now 14 year old has received pre-approved credit cards from Visa, Chase Bank and Amex. She also gets shipping supply catalogs, quotes for “business” insurance and now I just got one from Experian (the credit reporting agency!). All of the above have been addressed to Emily’s Babysitting Service which is the name we put on her cards! To make a long story short, I called VistaPrint and acted like I wanted to buy some mailing lists and they connected me to someone in that dept. That person went on to explain how and where they get their info from….blah, blah, blah. These guys are just in the business of collected peoples information and selling it to whoever. These guys really SUCK and I will go out of my way to tell anyone my story so they won’t ever do business with these bastards.
I forgot to mention that when calling one of businesses that sent her a catalog selling their shipping supplies, they told me that they got her name and business information from her D&B number (Duns & Bradstreet). Only established businesses have D&B numbers…i don’t know but I’m pretty upset with them.
I ordered “free cards” for my 11 year olds “babysitting business” so she could hand them out to family & friends. That was 3 years ago and we have not stopped getting junk mail and phone solicitations. Pre-approved credits cars, too. i am now getting things that have originated from Experian (credit reporting agency). my daughter has NEVER opened any bank accounts or had any credit. They got the info from VistaPrint. These guys suck. Any way to make a buck…give away a few cards and get a lot of information that you can sell!