On May 18th, 2006, I noticed a strange transaction on my credit card (WLI*RESERVATIONREWARDS.CO), for just CAD$11, something I wouldn't normally notice. I actually came to notice it because my apartment was robbed, and I needed to cancel my Visa card. My Visa card company (TD Visa) was asking questions to verify my identity, and seemed to want me to know about this transaction, as they asked me directly about it before almost anything else, but refused to acknowledge anything in any official capacity when I later complained about this to their fraud department. They said they would take note and that if enough people complained, take legal action. I'm sure they have many complaints, and I doubt they will lift a finger (see below).

Anyhow, after some leg work, I discovered this was fraudulent use of my card, and had been happening for months, at $11/month, ever since using movietickets.com, just once (I have notified them and am awaiting a response). I found out that the 'program' that billed me is called 'Reservation Rewards' and the company behind this program is Webloyalty.com.

So I called the number for this company, which, oddly, appeared on my credit card statement, to get to the bottom of this. After thinking about this, it is actually quite natural that they put the phone number there on the statment. It is far better for their 'business' if people complain directly to them, and then they acquiesce. The alternative would be that people complain to their financial institutions, and eventually, these institutions would then take legal action. For this reason, I wish that I had *not* contacted 'reservation rewards'/webloyalty.com to get my refund, but rather, had told my financial institution that it was fraudulent use and that I could not obtain a refund. Then the onus would not fall on powerless, individual consumers like myself, but be up to the banks, who would have the power of many complaints if everyone affected by the scam did the same. Because webloyalty.com is so amenable to giving refunds, the financial instutitions involved don't seem to really care, and this 'business' model persists.

What happened when I called reservation-rewards: first, their phone system wanted my account number, visa number, etc. Of course I provided nothing and got to an operator, who then also wanted my visa number, etc., to which I refused flat out and told them whatever information they had about me they had illegally, and I would not provide more. I did give them my name, and basically forced them to read most of my email address, only filling in part of it for them to 'verify' me. They then agreed to cancel my subscription. I demanded a refund, and they gave me one for one month. I demanded a refund for *all* months, and they said it was not their policy, but would do it anyhow. I pointed out to them that a legitimate company would not so easily refund legitimate billing, to which they responded that it is their policy to keep their customers happy, and thus this entails refunding them if they are unhappy...

I also demanded to know how they obtained my credit card/email information, and they, without hesitation, informed me that it was from movietickets.com. I do specifically remember getting a link to 'Reservation Rewards' from movietickets.com, but I most definitely DID NOT provide them with my credit card information. Apparently there may be some fine print which says that they will use your credit card from your previous transaction, (which is on a totally seperate web site) - I personally did not see this, but even if it did say this, clearly this type of billing is manipulative and highly illegal.

If you read Adam Rosi-Kessel's weblog, you will see that at least some of these vendors are completely oblivious to the problem, which seems to be linked to the card processing company used (e.g. virtualcart.com), though obviously a web store should do its due diligence in contracting out such important services, and should examine their sites more carefully. I'm not sure why nobody seems to be pissed off with these host sites, as they should take a large part of the blame for allowing this company to piggy back on them, and unless people also penalize these host web-stores (at least complain) these stores will have less incentive to do their due diligence, and things will carry on, as they are.

Jennifer
Toronto, Ontario
Canada