Shopping Essentials makes unauthorized charges

ComplaintsScamsShopping Essentials

Complaint

0
Inga M.
Country: United States
Shopping Essentials has been debiting my checking account for $19.95 without my permission or knowledge. I don't know how they got my bank information. I searched the web and found many complaints about them. It's a scam! I called the company to have the charges reversed. The girl said she got a confirmation from my email address, for the membership, I then told her that her company has reports all over ripoffreport and they reversed the charges right away. Get them on the phone and be persistent! Talk to your bank as well about the charges.


Here is address of Shopping Essentials if anyone needs to write to them:

Shopping Essentials
SM P.O. Box 5152 Des Plaines, IL 60017-5152
Attention: Customer Relations                
Phone: 888-243-6180

Comments

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  • 0
    Jenacide
    Thank you for posting the correct phone number to reach these people. They reversed the charges right away, set to post back to my account in two business days. Too bad they already overdrafted me. What a SCAM! I have no idea how they even got a hold of my information- the address they had was completely outdated as well!
  • 0
    rae
    I just received a brochure saying I had a membership... called they reversed the charges.  I never joined anything and they said I sign up thru Restaurant.com!  Called Restaurants .com  they said in no way do they save credit card info or share.  I am not happy that this company could get my info from somewhere!
  • 0
    Christopher
    OK -- here's what you do:

    yes,a scummy company called Shopping Essentials somehow started charging my credit card over a year ago for some service I'm still not clear on. I completely missed these small monthly charges. I called them up and basically said WTF is this!? They give me some line that a year ago I ordered something on the phone and agreed to sign up for this service.

    I said politely "fine -- you play that recording for me. I want to hear my voice agreeing to this. If you can't, I'm taking you to court, count on it." I just got this in my email:


    "This email confirms that a full refund/credit was processed for your Shopping Essentials membership. Please note that you will see your refund on one of your next two statements, depending on your billing cycle. We thank you for your interest in Shopping Essentials, and we hope your membership experience was a positive one." 
  • 0
    There is a God
    Yes,

    A scummy company called Shopping Essentials somehow started charging my credit card over a year ago for some service I'm still not clear on. I completely missed these small monthly charges. I called them up and basically said WTF is this!? They give me some line that a year ago I ordered something on the phone and agreed to sign up for this service.


    I said politely "fine -- you play that recording for me. I want to hear my voice agreeing to this. If you can't, I'm taking you to court, count on it." I just got this in my email:


    "This email confirms that a refund/credit of $334.20 was processed for your Shopping Essentials membership. Please note that you will see your refund on one of your next two statements, depending on your billing cycle. We thank you for your interest in Shopping Essentials, and we hope your membership experience was a positive one." 
  • 0
    bridic
    Watch out if you have had any dealings with "Resaurant.com" as they apparently link with 'Shopping Essentials' to put standing charges on your credit card....after enticing you to buy cheap resaurant discount certificates.  They wait a month or so, so that you don't make the link.
  • 0
    tj
    If they don't actually return your money, you can sue them.  Federal SOL on unauthorized charges is 1 year, so you can reach back that far from when you file your lawsuit.
  • 0
    KIt
    They just called me ans asked for my cc#. I thought it was part of my mastercard offering me a service. Then like I said she asked me for my # and I hung up. I'm hoping I don't get charged because I made a online ourchase at Walmart.com and they have my info now.
  • 0
    g
    I purchased airline tickets on Travelocity.com. I was offerred what I thought was $10.00 off the price of my plane ticket. I went to the site offering the $10.00 of and found out it was some coupon toward some purchasing group. I didn't sign up for it as I thought SCAM but Shopping Essentials Plus and Passport 2 Fun Plus each started taking $19.95 out of my checking account through my debit card.  My wife and I didn't catch them for quite a few months and they just kept taking it. I called 888-243-6180 which is a number I found on this complaint website.  Stayed on the line until I was connected to a woman representing Shopping Essentials Plus. She had to connect me to Abriel who works for Membership services, 9500 West Dodge Road, Suite 100, Omaha, NE 68114.  I am supposed to get my money back but it took the threat of contacting my attorney and turning them in to the Attorney General of my state to get it.  Scam! Scam! Scam!
  • 0
    Jo
    I just found a credit card charge for $ 13.95 on my credit card that was not authorized by me.  Have called credit card company.  I will now file a complaint with my Attorney General.  Will also file for a credit from previous charges that were made.  Don't know yet how far it goes back...but I never ordered this program and I can't sign on to the web site because they don't have my email address.....funny......since anytime you order on line they request it so they can send a confirmation
  • 0
    msakellis
    I was just changing my credit card till i realized that shoppingessential was charging me every month for 6 months.How did they get my credit card?
  • 0
    MJS
    Iwas just changing my credit card when i noticed that charges were made by shoppingessentail. It was my falt for not noticeing this before but I could not figure out how they got my credit card number to charge each month. Calling the credit card copmany doesnot help any because its not thier problem they told me.
  • 0
    Kimberly Griffith
    Hi I lost my credit card and when i was reviewing my new card charges i saw a charge of 14.95 on my statement.  I called them and they said that i joined them when i purchased something in 2008?????  I went and looked at my passed credit card statements and they had charged me 14.95 one month then didn't another then did a few months later...I told them to cancel my membership...how could they have my new credit card number and that i never joined anything...i made a dispute with my credit card and today i recieved a notice from shoppingessentials that i would be getting a 131.00 refund.  i now wonder how much money have they stolen from me.  just a word of advice look at all your statements and even the smaller charges.
  • 0
    ShoppingEssentials=terrible
    This post is so old, and this is still happening. I just realized that I have over a year of fradulent charges. If this is happening to you, don't give up. Their customer service was rude and condeceding to me. File with the BBB immediately and tell them you will sue if you don't get your money back. It wasn't until I 'lost it' with them that I got a full refund. (6 rational phone calls and a couple rational emails did not work, but getting very angry did).
  • 0
    Bill
    Shopping Essentials is a total scam. How is it that they can continue steal people’s money without official legal action being taken by law enforcement or consumer protection? Exactly the same thing happened to my wife. She'd ordered something from a magazine, Metro-Style, and somehow inadvertently signed up for Shopping Essentials. Without her permission, they were debiting between 19.95 and 23.95 from her account monthly for just over a year before she realized what was happening. Their reps were rude, insulting and outright obnoxious on the telephone when we called. They only offered to refund the most recent charge - 23.95, of the nearly 300.00 they had stolen. We filed a complaint with the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office and Shopping Essentials just sent us a letter telling us they were going to refund all of the money. The company practices blatant fraud and no one seems to be able to do anything to put them out of business.
  • 0
    Joan Smith
    My daughter was going through my credit card invoices when she happened upon a charge of $15.95.  I'm elderly and have a vision impairment so she helps me every once in awhile.  She asked me what the charge was from and I had no idea.  We further investigated my monthly invoices and found Shoppingg  essentials have been charging me $15.95 every month for the last 10 months.  I called them and they said it was for discounts on various items.  The records, if any, will show I never used this membership which should speak volumes.  I never signed up for any membership.  I feel I've been greatly scammed but don't know what to do about it.
  • 0
    Mehndi
    Why doesn't the government do their job and get involved and shut down this company? They have obviously committed fraud and identity theft by using our credit card numbers to get our money without having signed up and bought anything. More people will be doing these scams if there are no legal actions taking place. Somebody is dropping the ball on this one.
  • 0
    Essbee
    | 1 reply
    Ohh, seeing your note with 'restaurant.com' made me think!

    My Aunt just told me how great shopping essentials is for buying gift cards at 20% off, with a limit of $100 paid each month but with a $15.95 monthly charge (so you save 4%?) but she said you can cancel membership and start it again when you need to buy more.  I am really good at sniffing out deals, so I wanted to check it out, but since I hadn't heard of this company/deal, I checked googled it first with scams . . . and found all sorts of postings.

    I use restaurant.com all the time.  And just this week purchased several as my aunt was in town and we were going to go wild in NYC, and at the end of the purchase it offers "free" coupons to 4 businesses.  At the very bottom of the page it says "No thanks", but if you click on any of they coupons, it says in VERY tiny print, that it is for a paid membership (maybe not in those words, but something enough for the one time I looked at them to get scared).  I know my aunt uses restaurant.com too.  Need to alert her to review her charge bills to see if she got charged when she thinks she  had already cancelled membership but was suckered by the coupon at restaurant.com (and thus her cc info getting passed on . . .)

    Going to write restaurant.com and complain about working with this company.

    All the best,
    M. Essbee
    • 0
      Andrea replies to Essbee
      WOW it is July 2013, some of these post go back to 2008!  How the hell long is this company going to get away with this?
      Working on getting my money back from them now!
  • 0
    Essbee
    The link is made if you click for any of the 'free' coupons AFTER your restaurant.com purchase is complete.  In fine print, this page says these are for memberships (perhaps in different words).

    I've used restaurant.com for years, and we track all our spending on our credit cards each month, without any charges for real purchases.

    But the fine print is alarming and a bit of paranoia on-line has served me well to fear clicking on anything 'extra' on the internet.

    I will be contacting restaurant.com to voice my frustration that they allow such a deceptive practice on their website.
  • 0
    BRIDGET SCHINKEL
    Please cancel my membership ID633616580 CARD6011 3610 7934 5351
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