Please be aware and beware of the Luminess Air Cosmetics Company.

I will relate my story, but first, if you have a complaint, in addition to reporting the company to the BBB, I would suggest reporting Luminess to the Texas Attorney General's office. If enough complaints are received (and I'm personally mailing in 86) I was told they would investigate the company. Perhaps charges could even be brought against them.

Also, before Luminess puts their greedy paws back iknto your finances, I would advise that you contact your bank immediately if you paid with a debit card, or your credit card company if that was your method of payment. For a debit card, you need to "charge back" the Luminess fees. In other words, tell the bank that those payments were NOT authorized. Fill-out the required papers and then let the bank take it from there. Their rep will tell you what you need to do. It's possible you could even get your money back!

In order to stop Luminess from taking even more of your hard-earned cash, you also need to cancel your debit card (take enough cash out first to last 10 days) then get a new one. When Luminess next tries to take more "payments" from you, they'll find that your account has been closed.

Also, please use your email lists to pass warnings to other women about this company. The more the word spreads, the fewer people they will scam.

Because of my journalistic background, I'm also going to try to get 20-20 or a similar national program to investigate and air the complaints against the company. Plus, I plan to inform the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Federal Communication Commision (FCC) of Luminess's illicet behaviour. The more people we get to contact these agencies, the better chance there is of stopping Luminess.

Now, for MY Luminess story.

As you may know, Luminess is known for its airbrush make-up systems and primarily--but not exclusively--runs half-hour infomercials on late night TV.

If you should decide, in a moment of weakness, to try Luminess, know that if you change your mind in the middle of ordering, YOU CANNOT CANCEL! Your order is taken by an automated voice and, no matter how many times you press "0," to reach a human being, or yell into the phone that you want to cancel your order, no one will respond because no one is there.

Should you call the company the next day, most likely you will get routed from department to department to departmen to department to department, also by an automated voice. Again, not allowing you to speak to a human being to cancel your order.--or even to press a button to do so.

By the third day, if you do finallly reach someone, most likely his or her English will be poor, heavily accented and very difficult to understand. When I told one of the Luminess representative from India to please cancel my order, she replied: "Business is slower on Tuesdays and Thursdays." Gee, that sure took care of my request.

Also, be aware that what you read on their web site as their cancellation policy apparently really isn't. I was told they have a whole other policy for "trial periods"--one that I couldn't find anywhere on their web site. But, to my understanding, the one I couldn't see is the one that really counts. Sounds deceptive to me.

I also learned that you cannot refuse the package when it arrives. According to a rep from the Southgate, MI, U.S. Postal Service, the way Luminess has it set-up, YOU have to pay the return postage PLUS Luminess will charge you an additional fee of between about $40.00 to cancel your order. And you cannot return the package via U.S. Postal Service, you must drive to a Fed-Ex office. But not just any Fed-Ex office. It has to be a sub-station. And not just any sub-station. It has to be a ground sub-station, not an air sub-station, as I time-consumingly learned. Good luck finding one. The nearest one to my home was about 40 miles away. But, should you find the right sub-station and pay to return the package, it will be back on your doorstep within a a day or two. Why? Because, I was told, you cannot refuse to accept the package! So, there it was again, back on my front porch.

Should you decide to forego refusal of the package and send it--again at YOUR expense (another $12.00) -- via regular mail, you'll get it back again. Why? Because, I was later told, you have to have an authorization number (good luck getting one of those) or Luminess will return the package to you. How very convenient. THEY can refuse to accept the package, but YOU can't!

The rectangular white box is now back again. So you call Luminess and wade through all the various departments and people (who will try extremely hard to sell you something else), then learn that you now have to open the box and put the authorization code on the packing slip inside, as well as on the outside of the package. If you don't do this, Luminess will once again refuse to accept the package. The problem is, if you open the box, you could possibly be opening yourself to accusations and raiding of your bank account if the product is in any way damaged, If the package is opened and the airbrush machine damaged, YOU could be accused of breaking it and become liable for the over-$200 cost, plus the nearly $40.00 cancellation fee.

I was also told that if I "blogged" anything about the company, went on TV, commented in a newspaper (I'm a former newsspaper reporter) or used any other public forum (which I said I would do), they would keep my money. If I kept my mouth shut, they would "graciously" return $39.95--but keep the $72.00 they had already absconded from my bank acount. I was also told that if I did let the public know about their practices, that "the sword cuts two ways." Does that sound like a threat to you?

I've had to cancel my credit/debit card at the bank, close my account, contact every company to which I had paid a bill or ordered something
on-line, file complaint papers with the Texas Attorney General's office, complete more papers for my bank's fraud department, and fill-out papers to, hopefully, get the $72.00 "trial period" fee and $39.95 cancellation fee back.

And, for what it's worth, headquarters for Luminess are in Texas, but the majority of their workers appear to reside in India. How very patriotic and helpful to jobless Americans.

Luminess should be ashamed.


Denise