- After using my debit card online to purchase a kitchen
sink drain strainer and a few other cheap items from Dr. Leonard's Discount
house, I was offered a coupon declaring I was eligible to take $10 off
my next purchase. Since I had been a customer of Dr. Leonard's
for a few months, I assumed this was a legitimate offer and clicked on
the "coupon." One month later, on December 7, 2007,
I spotted a strange, flat fee of $10 from "Shopper Discounts 800-8898776
CT" billed to and removed from my bank account. I had never
heard of them before, but I had just somehow paid them $10..
-
- Upon investigating, I discovered that when I clicked
on the above $10 "coupon," all of my personal information including
my debit card number (which I had used to pay for my Dr. Leonard's order)
had been copied and handed over to a second corporation doing business
as "Shopper Discounts." Shopper Discounts then used this
information to enroll me in their own "club" without my authorization
or knowledge. Their club is not free. The cost of their "club"
is $10.00 per month, an amount which was to be billed to and removed from
my bank account every month unless or until I happened to catch this bogus
charge and stop it (which I did as soon as the charge appeared). I suspected
I was not alone in this "membership" scheme. In checking, I discovered
Dr. Leonard's is just one of the many retailers or travel reservation companies
who have entered into the above business arrangement with Webloyalty.com.Inc,
of which Shopper Discounts is a DBA.
-
- There have been thousands of complaints against Shopper
Discounts, including some rather horrifying complaints in which Shopper
Discounts apparently "sent email notifications" that if the trial
membership (into which the person had been entered without their knowledge)
was not cancelled within three months, this would result in an additional
charge of $96.00 against the person's bank account. Most claimed to have
never seen these "notifications" - a legitimate claim since emails
like this would most likely be recognized as spam and be deleted, (as they
were in my case).
-
- The fraudulent $96.00 charge has caused some unfortunate
people to become overdrawn in their accounts, resulting in additional charges.
Others have reported being charged $9.00 per month, instead of $10.00.
As to be expected when corporations think they are entitled to everything
they can get away with, law suits have been filed, and boycotts have been
called for.
-
- Not four days after the above theft, on December 11,
2007, two more fraudulent, unauthorized charges showed up charged to my
bank account against my debit card, each charge removing $24.95 from my
bank account. This $49.90 removed from my checking account was
not taken by Shopper Discounts. These new charges were from
yet another company that also apparently thinks it can get away with anything,
this one because it happens to be in some sort of an agreement with Oprah's
"Dr Phil."
-
- I had briefly patronized this firm back in September
of 2005 before realizing they were not what they claimed to be. As soon
as I realized this, I immediately canceled all of my ties with them and
assumed they were out of my life permanently. Over two years would pass,
however, before they again surfaced in my life, this time making fraudulent
charges against my debit card/checking account.
-
- I do not know how long these shady artists can keep our
credit card information in order to drum up illegal funds now and then,
but the apparent answer is "indefinitely." I am not listing the
name of this particular company because after spending yesterday fighting
with their incompetent staff, demanding the return of the $49.90 they had
stolen from me, after listening to their claims that they could not find
any record of this "transaction," after being told I had to give
them my account information when I have no account with them, after reading
the emails they sent to me in which they claimed they needed my email address
(???), they refunded the $49.90 without further comment on December 12,
2007. I'm still waiting for the Shopper Discounts refund of $10.00
-
- In the meantime, however, I have canceled my debit card
and ordered a new one and am thinking it might be a good idea to do this
on a regular basis. My suggestion for others is this: if your bank displays
your information online and if you use debit cards and make purchases on
the internet, check your bank account daily. If you use credit cards, go
through your monthly statement carefully. Don't assume (as many have) that
small flat fees such as $10.00, or $9.00, etc., are simply legitimate fees
that you actually owe. You might be sending your hard-earned dollars off
as donations to a Jabba the Hutt, bottomless pit corporation that is already
worth hundreds of millions and is still hungry for more.
-
-
- --------------
- mary is the author of a bestselling book, "Love
Song," which has just been released again in English, and has also
just been translated and released in Japanese, and will soon be released
in German. She is an investigative journalist who is a frequent
contributor to Rense.com.
- www.sparrowdancer.com Reach her here -sparrowdancer1@earthlink.net
- ---------------
-
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- Various references attributed to other human beings -
- http://www.complaintsboard.com/complaints/wli-shoppers-discount-c10798.html
- http://www.consumeraffairs.com/scam_alerts/shoppers.html
- http://www.dc.bbb.org/report.html?national=Y&compid=7628
- http://cbs5.com/investigates/credit.card.charges.2.480927.html
- http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/09/webloyalty.html
- http://www.consumerwebwatch.org/dynamic/ecommerce-investigation-webloyalty.cfm
- http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/287/RipOff0287438.htm
- http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/287/RipOff0287438.htm#271307
- http://www.lerachlaw.com/cases/webloyalty/complaint.pdf
- http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-01-12-dr-phil-online_x.htm
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-
Update
Shopper Discounts refunded my $10 on 12-13-7 right after
the publication of my story on Rense.com |