I have been buying things, banking, booking reservations, and all sorts of other transactions on the Internet for 13 years now. I don’t know how many times I have given out my credit card number, and lots of other personal information, trusting that it would be respected. Until now, it always has been. Obviously Internet commerce has thrived, and formed an important part of our economy.
But, as our department’s computer support person said recently, “the road ahead is filled with marauders”. Heh. Not just the road ahead…
It all started last January when I was interested in getting a home equity line of credit to do our landscaping project this year. Some of the places I wanted to apply to a specified minimum credit scores - I wanted to know mine. So, I Googled “free credit report” and got a list. I confess I don’t remember which one I went to. I do remember though that in order to get my free credit report at a certain point I had to enter my credit card number and authorize a one dollar payment. I was very careful to not sign up for any of the subscriptions or services that kept popping up as I clicked my way to my free credit report.
Eventually, I did get my free credit report, my score was great, and a few weeks later and got a really great deal on a home equity line of credit.
As it turns out, I chose the wrong credit reporting company, but here is where I screwed up. I often look at my credit card statements each month either online or in the printed bill I get, still, in the mail. But, it’s been a busy year and so it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that, in checking my credit card statement for something else, I noticed a few strange charges. They were all for either for $29.95, or $1.00. It appeared that there were one or two a month, to payees like AP9*CREDITDIAGNOSIS, AP9*YOURSAVINGSCLUB, and AP9*PMIDENTITY. Online, I could only go back a few months, so I called company right away.
They were very helpful, and sympathetic. In fact, the person I spoke with had seen this before. They assured me that if I called the 800 numbers, the money charged to my account (which I never had authorized) would be refunded. Ugh.
The people I spoke with tole me that I had been sent an e-mail to which I must reply, declining the subscriptions, or it would automatically enroll me in these programs. I dug through my spam folder which I had not erased since last year some time, and found them. Evil!
Nevertheless, I wanted my money back: hundreds of dollars was taken from me without an opt-in authorization! (Yes, I still feel appropriately stupid.) With two out of the three subscriptions, I was able to get through to a human being who very cheerfully said they would refund all the charges back to January, and cancel my subscription to their service. But, with the third one, I was unable to get to a human being using the 800 number and all I could do was cancel my account. I wanted a refund!
I did some more online sleuthing, and found that I was not alone: this was one company, who was apparently taking advantage of people who, like me, swore up and down that they never subscribed for these services. One guy posted a list of 800 numbers that you could call, all at the same company: Adaptive Marketing LLC. I called and spoke with a very nice woman, who canceled my account and promised to refund the money.
A couple days later, I got e-mails from Adaptive saying that my refund would be processed. I watched my credit card statement, and with one of them it gave me a full refund, and with another only for one month. I called back, complained, and a few days later got a full refund for the second one. Similarly with the third it took a few phone calls but I believe I have now gotten all my money back. No new charges appeared on my card, either. Looking at their online website, this company appears to be legitimate. In fact, some of their services, like Your Savings Club might actually be worth it if you were diligent in using it.
Anyway, embarrassing as this is, I relate it to you in the hope that if there are any of you out there who, like me, foolishly have not looked at their credit card statements recently, and have gone to one of these places and gotten a “free credit report”, you too can get your money back. Just look for those telltale “AP9″ charges on your statement.
Good luck… they’re out there.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Sorry to hear you had this experience. I’ve been similarly ripped off in the past and after a frustrating search for some outlet I found consumerreports.org. They’re a non-profit consumer advocacy group any time I need to do business with an organization I’m unsure about I look them up in the database at consumerreports.org. They seem to have good information on just about any company you’re likely to deal with and lots of folks write them about bad experiences, like I always do now.
Good luck!
November 18th, 2008 at 9:52 am
To truly get your “free credit report” you need to go to annualcreditreport.com, which will give you an actual free report. They don’t give you your actual credit score (unless you want to pay), but they give you the full report.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:54 am
The real site for the free credit report you are entitled to every year is a .gov site. I don’t remember the URL, but I know consumer reports and several pf blogs (like get rich slowly) have listed it in the past year.
November 18th, 2008 at 9:55 am
This is all too common, (no offense!). You can get an annual free credit report from all three credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax and Trans Union at annualcreditreport.com. This site was set up by the three credit companies for just such an occasion and is free, as in “no charge”. But only once a year. If you use any other site, more than likely you will have to agree, directly or indirectly!, to a “credit watch” or some other form of recurring charge in order to get at your report.
It has been recommended that you get one report every few months, as in, say, March, a report from Experian, July a report from Trans Union, and November a report from Equifax, allowing you to generally keep tabs on what is being reported throughout the year.
Glad you were able to get your money back! I am sure that there are many who aren’t as diligent and lose countless amounts every year!
November 18th, 2008 at 10:05 am
No full post in the feed.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:13 am
It’s that kind of stuff that led me to check my accounts online every day. Only takes a couple of minutes and it’s definitely worth it to stop those vultures from ripping me off
November 18th, 2008 at 11:52 am
I was gotten too by a credit check agency. It was free! What they didn’t sy was there was a 15 dollar processing fee and a recurring monthly “credit monitoring” fee for $15.
November 18th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
This is but the latest internet scam connected to Naveen Jain of Infospace fame:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/29/AR2008052903676.html
November 18th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I work customer service for a major bank and we have to let customers know to be careful when using those free credit reports. I usually advise people to contact the big three credit reporting companies yourself. They are obligated to giving you your credit report once a year for free and the single request can’t be used against you in the credit scoring.
When you go to services that combine it for you it causes the request to be reported. When you have too many requests for credit information can reduce your overall score.
Hope that helps.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
I lived in the US as a graduate student for a few years. I had a SSN, credit card, and no blemishes on my credit rating. I have now moved to New Zealand, but I am somewhat concerned that I might be at risk of identity theft in the US. So I thought I would avail myself of the free credit report service. Looks like a reasonable way to keep an eye out for fraud.
Sadly, the service is only available to those current living the the US, so I miss out. Currently I’m not getting a paid service either. It’s hard to say how much it might be worth paying to get one.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
My five minutes of fame (including a stint on Japanese TV) came courtesy of a similar fraud in the 90s: http://www.faughnan.com/ccfraud.html (Sorry, it’s a mess, but it will never be cleaned up.)
Now we have ‘fraud watch’ protection on our accounts, so a bit harder to change our address, etc. Credit companies will do that if you’ve been defrauded, maybe also on request. No fee.
I highly recommend AMEX over Visa/MC for any internet transactions — vastly better fraud detection, vastly better service, centralized. Don’t use VISA on the net. Get AMEX blue cash back and use that.
We do scan statements. We don’t bother with receipts, just scan them. I don’t mind periodic small scams, I just watch for the big ones (like $3000 in Dell hardware one year, AMEX reversed the charges in minutes).
It’s a jungle out there.
As Schneier writes, we need to make the banks liable for damages …
November 19th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Sometimes, for services like these where you never authorized charges, your best bet is just do a chargeback on all the products. This costs the services money (which is why they usually are happy to refund your money), and eventually can lead to the company losing its access to credit services.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:15 pm
the FTC has a website on this topic here: http://www.ftc.gov/freereports
it says: “annualcreditreport.com is the ONLY authorized online source for you to get a free credit report under federal law.”
November 19th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
Some credit cards allow you to view your credit score online. I have a card through Providian– no, WaMu– no, Chase… *sigh* and can look up online my credit score and a bunch of other credit related stuff online anytime, and I think that they can order the report itself, too. You might want to check with your CC company and see if they offer these.