BMG Columbia House cancelled my account and they reopened it and charged me without my permission. New York New York

Best thing to do, is call your bank and inform them that they charged your card formerchandise you did not order and that they used your cardnumber from another purchase to ring charges up with. Your bank will probably require you to cancel the credit card but heck, its your money and they have a reputation of continuing this. Let them lose the money plus chargeback fees withsometimes can be as much as $30.

Also, if its a checking account money can most of the time be gotten back as well like a charge back and blocked like a stopped check from being charged again or just close it and reopen another. Now, below is what you should do in future to prevent anyone from doing this again.

You need 2 checking accounts. Main, and secondary for net purchases or contract buying. The secondary account needs to have a credit/debit card of its own plus make sure the bank doesnt put a overdraft on the second account. Only use the second account for things like BMG or mail oder over the net. Keep $1 to keep it open andmake sure its a free checking too, so you dont waste money on fees if possable.


Now, lets say you want to try a service out that might try charging you other fees falsly or enter you into some stupid contract illigally ot even charge you more then they are suppose to? This normally stops it. Lets say the price is $35. Log into your bank, or call like some banks offer, transfer $35 over to secondary account. Now make your purchase. If the company tries to take more then $35 or sell you more without you knowing it, the card will bedeclined and no over draft fees. Now, this only works if as I said above theres no overdraft on second account also, do not use the 2nd account for daily purchases becasue doing so can give the bad company the chance to get money. Explanitation below.

If you put $35 into 2nd account and leave it for a few days, thats all there is and they cant get anymore. But, if you use it for a lot of purchases, there can be a chance that money you put in for something else, like $15 for lunch, would put a total of $50 and then if someone like BMG charges $45, theyll get it and worse off, the lunch becomes over and youll get hit with a $30 overdraft fee.

If you follow my confusing instructions above, and only use the 2nd account for things like BMG ormail order once in a while, like 3 or 4 days, you should be safe and only use it for credit card sales, never checks. If you get checks for 2nd account, destroy them to prevent accidents.

Youll notice all of my reports I have never mentioned getting charged more, and thats becasue I follow the rules I stated above. Hope this helps you out =)

Yeah, that makes more sense. Sorry about that. I have to agree with you.

The "Free Certificate" they sent me was actually a certificate to purchase the final obligationed DVD. I paid them what I owed them, and they sent me this ticket and a brochure of eligible movies to use it with. By using the certificate, it ended my membership and my account was closed. The woman I spoke with today, confirmed that my account was re-instated.

If it was never cancelled, it could not have been re-instated. And the fact that there was a 2 to 3 month interval between me cancelling my account the first time, and them pulling this on me verifies that my account was closed. Irregardless, I KNOW for a fact I closed my account the first time. I was unable to do anything on the website as it stated that my account was closed, and all I was allowed to do was edit my credit card information.

This again was the case today after I asked the woman once again to close my account. During our conversation, I had access to the website, as that's how I got the Customer Service Phone number. After the call, I was no longer permitted to view the website, as my account had been closed. I just thought I would clarify. My account was closed. They reopened it on their own, without my permission.

"Upon cancelling my account I received a certificate for one free movie. I used it and ordered the movie."

You didn't think they were just going to send you a free movie out of nowhere did you? I would find that hard to believe. I would bet there was something on this "coupon" stating that they wanted to keep you as a "valued customer" or something to that effect-but the purpose was to keep you active.

Did you tell all these people you talked to about this event happeneing? Seems you may have left that out. This is probably the reason the account is still considered open. Just a thought.