scientology false advertising regarding refunds - time for Class Action
SME
organized scientology for, amongst other things, false advertising and
fraud relating to what they say and do with respect to refunds and
repayments to dissatisfied customers.
First of all, here are a few broad facts:
1) scientology promotes that it will refund payments to dissatisfied
customers. It has even made that clear in its filings with the IRS as
part of getting its "non profit", tax exempt recognitions from the
IRS;
2) it professes to be a religion with religious scriptures and yet,
unlike other religions, demands ten of thousands if not hundreds of
thousands of dollars from its "parishioners" in order to share many of
those "scriptures" with them. And it uses very hard sell, abusive and
some times even illegal tactics to get many of those parishioners to
pay such monies. They couch those payments in deceptive terms such as
"fixed donations" when they are in fact mandatory payments for their
services;
3) countless people are in fact dissatisfied with those services and
want their money back. Yet the vast majority do not get their money
back while organized scientology holds countless millions of dollars
of these payments, accruing interest daily.
So how can it be that an organization that widely promotes that it
will return monies to dissatisfied public has so many dissatisfied
public who want their money back and yet do not in fact get it back?
IMHO it is because "the church" is guilty of blatant false advertising
and fraud in their promotion to public and in their statements to
governments on the subject of the return of monies to dissatisfied
public.
"The church" has adopted a policy that monies will be returned only in
two cases:
I) if the money was "on account" and not actually "used for services";
and/or
II) if the request for repayment was made within three months of "the
service" being delivered.
Furthermore, it lays out something which on the surface sounds "fair
enough". It says that it has a "Claims Verification Board" that exists
simply to "verify" that the monies were paid prior to returning them
to the "parishioner".
Oh but what a tangled web of deceit, lies and fraud is woven behind
these seemingly innocent "policies".
The facts are that "the church" is completely focused on money and has
no real intention of returning same to anyone. They have in fact
worked out many ways to prevent others from getting their money back
that they do not mention in their promotions to either individuals or
governments about this subject.
First of all, most people usually have the take the services to find
out they were dissatisfied or in fact the services themselves were of
a fraudulent nature and did not in and of themselves produce the
results promised in "church" literature.
This means that perhaps the vast majority of potential claims for the
return of monies paid are not in fact money any longer on account but
rather are in the category made by "the church" of having to be
claimed within three months of taking the service.
It is here where the most insidious and hidden fraud lies. "The
church" has it rigged so that most people can never in fact claim a
return of monies within three months of taking the services.
Just a few things that support this are:
1) I believe that just about anyone who made such payments did so
because they believed "the church" would deliver the result promised.
And many of those people made those payments under great "hard-sell"
duress. But when they took the service and found that they did not get
the results, they were told by "the church" that it was their fault
and that they needed other handlings. These "handlings" be they
"ethics", "qual" or whatever would be dragged out to last well over
the three months allotted for refund of payments;
2) the people taking the service were strictly forbidden, under severe
penalties, from talking about their dissatisfaction with anyone else,
nor could they look elsewhere (such as the internet) for help and so
had no one else but organized scientology to go to in order to handle
their dissatisfaction;
3) due to the very nature of the mental aspects of all this, it can
take decades, not three months, for one to come to terms with the
fraud perpetuated on them through the services they took. Very, VERY
few people in my opinion are able to see through the lies in just
three months;
4) perhaps the worst of it all, is that the church says that you will
be declared a "suppressive person" if you get a return of monies. That
means that if you are dissatisfied with your services and get the
return of monies that they so widely promote as available, then in the
eyes of "the church" you are a suppressive person. And this means that
you will immediately lose all contact to family, friends and work that
still remain in scientology. Most people will go through hell before
they will give up their loved ones. And this prevents almost anyone
from making their claim within three months, if ever. NO WHERE does
"the church" say broadly in its benign-sounding promotion to potential
paying public about refunds available that, should the person get the
money back, they lose their family, friends and contacts still in
scientology. Nor do they tell that part of it to the IRS or other
governmental organizations. Oh how insidious that is!!!!
Now let's look at the "Claims Verification Board" (CVB) routing form
itself to see how this works.
I just got the current copy of the two page routing form this month.
If by some miracle the person wanting money back managed to rise above
all the points covered earlier and in fact make his/her claim within
three months, the routing form itself is rigged to stop the claim. Yet
they will try to force you to do the routing form as they usually
included language about it when you paid them the money.
The purpose of the routing form is NOT to get you your money back. Its
stated purpose is: "To give the person seeking a refund or repayment a
procedure which lays out what he is supposed to do".
In a "NOTE TO THE CLAIMENT" on the form, "the church" makes it clear
to the claimant that he/she must take the form in hand and see each
person on the routing form, do the steps required with each person and
then ensure it is mailed to the CVB.
He/she must see a "CHAPLAIN" and do what handlings the chaplain says
to do. When all "handlings" are complete and he/she still wants a
refund, he/she must get a signed statement of what the chaplain did,
get all cancelled checks, invoices and receipts, do some paperwork
with them and then take that all to a treasury secretary.
He/she also has to acknowledge that an "administrative charge" will be
made by the CVB. No where does it say how much the charge will be.
Then, somehow, the claimant has to get from the treasury secretary
various different statements from the "Technical Secretary", the
"Qualifications Secretary" and the "Flag Banking Officer" and then put
all this together and send it to the CVB.
For anyone doing a routing form in most orgs that involve this many
people good luck getting it through timely. But here it is even worse,
you have to subject yourself to "handlings" by people who DO NOT want
you to complete this form and who will get in trouble if you do
complete this form. Every "stop" conceivable will be put on your
actions to prevent this from going any further.
And remember, there is no time commitment for this form. You probably
have to go out of town, stay in a hotel or whatever and be away from
work while you somehow push this form through wherever the
organization to whom you gave money is located.
Heaven forbid that you want money back from more than one organization
(say a local org, flag and "the ship") as you would have to go to all
these places and separately do such a routing form for each one.
Now if by some miracle the CVB, in its own time, agrees that some
portion of your money will be paid back (you don't get to see that
alleged "Board") they inform the local Flag Banking Officer and the
claimant by mail of the decision and arbitrarily decide what "the
administrative charge" is.
Now, months later or whatever, when the claimant gets the above
communication back from the CVB and the routing form back, he/she must
go again to the organization, take it to an ethics officer, do
whatever "actions" are listed and then you must fill out and sign a
release, waiver and writ of expulsion (note: you sign all the above
before you get any money back).
Now you, as an expelled person who may no longer have contact with
your family, friends or anyone else still in organized scientology,
must somehow take all this to the treasury secretary again with the
written "attest" of the ethics officer and then somehow the org/orgs
will give you back your money. There is no time limit put on this in
the routing form. Could be days, weeks, months or years until the
organization has the money to pay you.
And remember, you must do this for every organization from which you
want your money back.
And here is a great one: The routing form says "If you have any
difficulties in using this routing form or need any assistance in
proper use of routing forms, please contact the Senior Routing Form I/
C Int". What????????? Who is that? How do you contact him/her? Does
this mean that if you are stuck at flag in part one of your routing
form that you somehow appeal to this unnamed person for help and just
sit there out of town and away from work to wait and see if and when
he/she will reply? Scheeesch!!!
Bottom line folks is that the whole "church" promotion about
"friendly" refund policies is nothing more than false advertising and
a complete fraud IMHO.
How many of you are out there now, dissatisfied and wanting your money
back but have given up on it? Well you have been defrauded and you are
the victims of false advertising. I believe that civil complaints can
be made to relevant governmental bodies on this matter and a class
action suit successfully prosecuted if we get together on this.
Through civil complaints perhaps we can get appropriate governmental
bodies to take actions to force "the church" to cease lying about and
otherwise misrepresenting their refund policies.
For example, I think that "the church" should have to include a very
specific written briefing to all prospective payers for services that,
should they request and get a refund of the monies they are being
asked to pay now, all of their family, friends and business associates
that remain in good standing with "the church" will be forced to
disconnect from them. The church policies about suppressive persons
should be made available and it made clear that they will be
considered suppressive persons simply by virtue of getting a return of
monies.
Additionally, "the church" should be forced to change its "CVB"
policies so that all monies are returned within seven days of request
(or some other appropriate finite number of days).
And, given the nature of the "services", there should be no time limit
for making a refund request.
These sort of things are needed to prevent false advertising and fraud
on this subject.
I say send your information to Factnet along with anything else
covered in their questionnaire. See this post:
Let us each who wants a refund compare notes and resources and see
what can be done about this. Together we have an overwhelming,
compelling story. We just need to get together on this more. The
Factnet thing is a great start.
If anyone is already dealing with an attorney or legal help center, I
suggest we get our respective representatives in touch with each other
now.
We can do something about this! It's really just one man that stops
us. That would be David Miscavige. The rest of corporate scientology
is nothing more than his alter ego IMHO.
SME
antisectes
...as well as putting incredible pressure on the client or staff
(sometimes to the point of pushing to commit suicide, like it happened
yet recently in more than one country)
>
> 2) the people taking the service were strictly forbidden, under severe
> penalties, from talking about their dissatisfaction with anyone else,
> nor could they look elsewhere (such as the internet) for help and so
> had no one else but organized scientology to go to in order to handle
> their dissatisfaction;
which is severely contrary to the articles of Human Rights declaration
and national laws of most countries, including USA. Further, this
demonstrates that scientology does not act as a "religion" that it
pretends to be, but as a commercial system, and a fraudulous one.
>
> 3) due to the very nature of the mental aspects of all this, it can
> take decades, not three months, for one to come to terms with the
> fraud perpetuated on them through the services they took. Very, VERY
> few people in my opinion are able to see through the lies in just
> three months;
This is so true for fraudulous and criminal cults (not only the
scientology one), that one of the official proposals to counter the
frauds established by these groups was to give much more dealy after the
facts to their victims.
>
> 4) perhaps the worst of it all, is that the church says that you will
> be declared a "suppressive person" if you get a return of monies. That
> means that if you are dissatisfied with your services and get the
> return of monies that they so widely promote as available, then in the
> eyes of "the church" you are a suppressive person. And this means that
> you will immediately lose all contact to family, friends and work that
> still remain in scientology. Most people will go through hell before
> they will give up their loved ones. And this prevents almost anyone
> from making their claim within three months, if ever. NO WHERE does
> "the church" say broadly in its benign-sounding promotion to potential
> paying public about refunds available that, should the person get the
> money back, they lose their family, friends and contacts still in
> scientology. Nor do they tell that part of it to the IRS or other
> governmental organizations. Oh how insidious that is!!!!
That means further that you admit you are an enemy of the humanity as a
whole, since the SP definitions lead to this global one: an SP is part
of the 2,5 % of humans who make this planet a hell. Scientology means
that one has to SIGN this , as if it were a fact you declare true!