"All I did was order a few DVDs. What they did was get use of my credit card before I caught them. Their excuse was that I agreed to their club membership for a trial period, and when I did not cancel, it was A_OK to charge. I think I found them at Amazon, but not sure. "

"This company is a rip off. They been charging me a 20 dollar amonth membership fee for a membership i did not ask for. all i did was buy a dvd."

"Paid these A$$holes for over a year - wife thought it was NetFlix...."

"My experience with HotMovieSale's website has been excellent! A vast inventory with hard to find movies. The site is very user-friendly. The customer service representatives are very knowledgible regarding answering questions & assiting with your order. I was extremely pleased with the expedition of the orders & the delivery time. First & foremost, the prices are amazing. What better way to shop from home & still purchase the product that you want, cheaper than the big retail stores. Also, the money that I saved in fuel costs allowed me to purchase 2 additional movies. "

"I agree with the other purchasers. This store thrives on unsuspecting consumers and have very sneaky tactics to make their money by ripping people off straight out of their bank accounts. I bought one movie for what I thought was a good price at 6.76 with shipping included. It ended up costing me 76.41 total before I realized what was going on with them taking money out of my bank account by buying only one movie. Be very aware there are very bad people ripping off the unsuspecting out there. Hard to trust anyone with people like this around. The lady I talked to from this company seemed very practiced in handling my call since she probably gets calls like mine or worse all day long every day."

"Ordered from this company and never recived i think they dont really ship unless you join there club which i didnt. Gives you an option to order without joining which i picked, I finally cancelled order since it wasnt going anywhere and ordered from amazoN for 2.00 more."

"Same story. They cancelled my DVD order after two months-said DVD was out of stock. I did not realize that they were billing me $19.95 per month in stealth charges. Contacted Credit Card fraud dept. to report this apparent scam."

"Beware this company. They bill bill your charge card a month later and charge you a membership fee that they had hidden in your order. I am filing a dipute with Visa and a complaint with the Consumer Fraud Division of mt State Attorney General's office. They need to be stopped."

"As soon as you place your order, you agree to become a member. They only give 3 days trial period to cancel your member ship, that is very stupid. only 3 days ?!! usually it takes 4 to 5 days to see their charge posted on your credit card and as soon as you see their charge it is already late for cancelling. If you cancel your member ship after three days they will charge you 19.95 $ and if you cancel your member ship before trial period ends they will not ship your movies. During check out you have an option of not accepting their membership but actually as soon as you place your order they charge you member ship fee as well. So do not look at their cheaper price it is just to trick people.
They make their profit by charging you memberships fee it was a lesson for me that I should check rating of a seller website before placing my orders.
Their price was a few $ less than Amazon but by membership fee I ended up with much higher price comparing with Amazon.
"

"I discovered from my credit card statement a charge of $19.95 for membership that I was automatically enrolled into without prior authorization or approval. The company has refused a refund of the membership charge. Very deceptive. I have filed a complaint with the credit card company as well as the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The DVD I ordered did arrive albeit late because it was supposedly out of stock."

"After ordering a movie they will never shipp they will charge you $12 on your credit card every month for the rest of your life. If you get your movie you will be lucky these guys are like Bernard Madoff. Its the biggest scam on the internet!!!!!!!! Avoid this site like the plague they will rip you off!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I purchased the new Pokemon a month before its release to ensure getting it. WRONG what I did get is a enrollment into there club, which I did not want nor did I notice at the very bottom of the page but not on the invoice or total of purchase. When I cancelled, the game that was ready to mail was suddenly back ordered, everyone in town had it so I cancelled it also. I was told it would take several billing cycles to get my credit... To day it is about 2 weeks of the 2 billing cycle and no credit yet. MY ADVISE----DO NOT BUY FROM THIS COMPANY.... It should be illegal to sneak in a membership, and sneak it was."

"Their website has great price, but they don't intend to ship you the item. Beware that you are agreed to sign up a saving membership once you place an order with them, which will cost you $15/month if you don't cancel.

I have waited for about a month and my order is still Pending. If you don't cancel the membership, you would end up paying a lot more. "

"Yes this company preys on people not realizing they are signing up for a monthly membership service. I went in knowing this and have used this information on two occasions now. First order got me Shooter on Blu-Ray for $8.00 shipped and the second time I ordered T2 on Blu-Ray for $1.50 shipped!!!! You just have to know how to work it. You will need a seperate e-mail and CC each time. Place your order. Get order confirmation. Get shipping confirmation. Call to cancel account. I do suggest waiting until you receive the e-mail saying the order has shipped before cancelling. You have 7 days to cancel before they charge you. I made myself a note and put it on my computer monitor at work. I wrote down my confirmation of accoutn cancellation and kept the e-mail confirmations as well. I already monitor my CC statements closely and will zing them if they still try to charge me."

"This store is one of those slimy little operations that exists mainly to hornswoggle the consumer. By placing an order with them, you are (probably unknowingly) consenting to be signed up to a 7-day free trial of an on-line coupon program owned by the same company. After those 7 days, you will be charged $14.99 per month. Of course, they do have to mention this on their website, but they make every possible effort to obscure the information, putting it in places you won't look or will glance over. The idea, I believe, is that people will be too lazy or oblivious to cancel their membership, so they'll get at least one month's payment, possibly more, out of the hapless saps they conned into signing up. And this form of operation is so cheap, all they need is one month to turn a tidy profit.

That being said, they DO have excellent prices on their DVDs, especially for first-time buyers, and it is not uncommon for this store to pop up as the cheapest vendor on price-comparison sites such as Frucall.com. I suspect this is how they lure most of their victims.

When I first placed my order for three DVDs, I was unaware of their deceptive practice. I only became aware of it when I later noticed the other review someone had written of the store here. When I went back and reviewed their terms, I decided to stick with the order, and cancel the discount program manually after it had shipped. I did not have trouble canceling; all I needed to do was go to the parent website, SmartSavingsCenter.com, log in with my userID and password from the DVD store, click on "My Profile," and click "Cancel." To my amusement, their exit poll for cancellation reasons included such choices as "I never wanted the service to begin with," and "I think the service is a fraud."

(If you plan to do this yourself, take note: their terms of service fine print states that they reserve the right to cancel your DVD order if you cancel their service before they ship it! However, you have seven days in which to cancel, and they usually ship within one or two days of your order. As long as you can remember to cancel once you get their ship notice, you should be fine.)

In the meantime, I printed off some coupons that looked useful, and used one of them the next day to save myself $7 on a pizza. I suspect that the coupon program could earn back its expense for someone who makes more purchases or lives in an area where more offers are available than mine; however, I cannot endorse using a service that relies on deception to obtain customers.

As for the DVD order, the store shipped promptly, and the DVDs arrived as advertised, in a bubble mailer in decent condition. I have no complaints about the quality of their DVD mail-order service in and of itself. However, I deplore their underhanded bait-and-switch tactic of signing customers up for their coupon subscription service, and would not recommend them over other services such as Amazon, DeepDiscount, or DVD Pacific. The amount of money you save is just not worth the trouble."