Unauthorized use of credit card
Complaint
William Russell
Country: United States
This seems to be a scam. This company obtained my credit card for a charge of 4.95 for a discount booklet. Never received booklet and then this unauthorized use of my credit card was used in the amount of 24.95 which it after reading other complaints, will try and to charge every month to credit card. I never received any email or any invoice in the mail. I never authorised this company for the membership. I have notified my credit card company to refuse any monthly charges from this company.
Comments
There are a number of companies engaged in "selling" these worthless "discount memberships", splitting the take with other merchants or telemarketers. Consumer fraud losses due to this "industry" are in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year.
Was the fraudulent offer through a telemarketing call?
Or was it through a call you made to order something from some merchant, or an on-line purchase, possibly through a pop-up?
If so, what merchant, product, phone numbers, website (URL)?
"I have notified my credit card company to refuse any monthly charges from this company."
That is your best option, as your bank can reverse the charges. Follow up with a written dispute or fraud affidavit to preserve your FCBA dispute rights.
Be sure to have your bank block the card number as well, since such scams often attempt to cram charges under different names, or sometimes "cancel", then start charging again months later, trying to slip more charges through.
Numerous complaints against these scams report that attempts to cancel or get refunds through calling such scams usually result in deceptive attempts to string consumers along and delay fraud disputes past the 60 day dispute window allowed by FCBA or FRB Reg. E. Some investigations have found that over 90% of their "customer service" calls are dealing with "cancellations", trying to resell angry "customers", or delay refunds.
You should also report this to FTC and your state Attorney General. You might also call the offices of Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who conducted the hearings, just to let them know these scams are still in operation.