pureprofile referral scam

[lastninja]

Hi, just my personal experience, about to lodge some kind of formal / governmental ombudsman complaint ASAP and wanted to see if anyone else had the same experiences. Firstly I was MYSELF referred to pureprofile around 2 years ago, of course I clicked the link in the email like I should and just expected my friend to get the $5 referral (over time of me earning $25) they deserved. There is no way to check however, as who actually referred YOU is apparently NOT included on your account details. So 6 months ago I get my partner to sign up, she registers from my referral, I am sitting WITH her there, and made sure she clicked the link in the email.

A few weeks later she has made her first $5, thereby giving me $1 referral cash. I wait for this, nothing happens, so a week or two later I ask if they can please give me the $1 via their contact page. They do this, advising by writing back that it is currently a MANUAL process and I would need to contact them whenever my referral reaches amounts of money.

SO if you are NOT personally in touch with the person who referred you, they would not know they were meant to get $s from your account earnings, or to know what time to contact pure profile to request the payment!

Now, 6 months later, my de facto partner and referral earned $10, thereby enabling the next $1 referral cash for me. It has been a month of emails now, I think it was 3-4 replies on my behalf, to their statement each time that 'now the referral process is undergoing automation routines which will take a few more months to complete and that there is no record of me having referred anyone'.

Now this is just a scam, I also referred my grandmother! She never got up to the money required for any bonus on my part, but she definitely signed up as a referral of me! Also, there is no doubt that my partner signed up from my link, she still has the email saying 'ben has referred you' to this program, then 2 days later the email saying 'please validate your email'.

But on the validate or any other future email, it SPECIFICALLY does not mention anyone referred you, or if your referral process was successful. Nor anywhere in your actual profile does it state who referred you, or who you referred. Now after a month of emails, they kept saying 'there is no record of your referral' even though 6 months ago they MANUALLY credited me $1 after the referral.. so having received another email today saying I was basically lying about my referral, I decided to call up their Sydney NSW headquarters.

I was told on the phone (the call costing probably $5 itself!) that it was 'probably a mistake' on the part of the MANUAL credit 6 months ago, that their actual staff member probably should not have given me the $1, because NOW there is no info on the account stating who you referred! Apparently there should have been this.. but they are saying that now there is nothing, but 6 months ago there was also nothing, so therefore it was a mistake on the part of their staff. But how/why could their staff give me $1 if there was no record of my referral's name/email on my account? So mysteriously since the 'automation' process occurred, it appears my referrals have been wiped. Having no profile record of this myself, there is no way to tell they are a member even (little alone a referral) apart from attempting to re-refer them, which says 'this email is already in the pureprofile database'.

Anyone else experienced similar grief with referrals?

It really seems like a scam to totally give up on the referral cash incentive.. I feel like the 'automation' process was mererly a way to scam everyone out of anything at all. So after 10 minutes on the phone, explaining the various evidence I have (such as previously being credited manually) and my annoyance at having 2 months of email replies not correctly responded to or having to spend time and money on the phone for a positive outcome (for a measly dollar!), I am told they will credit the $1 to my account. Hoorah! However, they still claim I have no referrals, my referral IS NOT and WILL NOT be tied to the system.

This is disgraceful, surely if my referral asked them to, they should tie the account to me? If she still has an email from June saying 'last ninja (me) has referred you to this site' and then 2 days later an email saying 'you need to validate your email' it should be obvious that I was referring, and if some mess up DID happen )WHICH IT DIDNT!!( then they should not have a problem MANUALLY adding her as my referral, since the evidence is there, and if she were to request it, and to say that IT IS TRUE and she DID click the link in the email I sent.. and that I AM TELLING THE TRUTH also and that I DID refer her.

But they basically say bad luck you get nothing.

So it seems like a total scam to me. The next thing I plan on doing is contacting the person who referred me, and ask them if they ever received their $5 (when I reached my first $25 cash out they should have got this, or $1 per every $5 I earnt)...

I really doubt it! With that evidence that two generations of referrals have got nothing, I plan to take this to a higher authority.

Such scams sicken me, anyone else have experiences they can share about this?