Free Credit Report.com Info.Freecreditrepor Inf A very disturbing unauthorized banking transaction, Internet

In January of this year, I paid for what I thought was a one-time expanded credit report through freecreditreport.com. I was not aware that I was committing myself to a monthly fee. This company must be particularly sneaky about their fine print and conditions, because I've been around the block a few times: I'm fairly savvy about online transactions, I'm not naive, and not predisposed to being scammed.

Anyway, on March 14, 2010, I received an email signed by General Manager Charles Lee. In this email, he wrote:

"FreeCreditReport.com has been helping you safeguard your personal credit information. However, we have been unable to process your monthly membership fee. This might be due to an expired credit card or a credit limit issue. If we continue to be unable to process your membership fee, your account will be canceled on 4/25/2010 and your credit reports will no longer be monitored. Please take a moment to update your credit card information...."

In fact, they were not able to process additional payments, because,  the check card I used for the initial transaction had since been replaced by a new card with an entirely different card number.

I figured, "Great, I just won't give them the new card number, because I never authorized more than one payment anyway"; and then I moved on with my life, because I'm a busy person.

Well, I monitor my account transactions electronically frequently, and I was really surprised recently to see a payment of $29.90 posted on 6/1/2010 to Info.freecreditinfo. Aside from the fact that my account was supposedly canceled on April 25th, what makes this particularly disturbing is that I never gave them updated credit card information. Any reputable company would interpret this as a tacit denial of payment, and I'm heading straight to my bank today to insist that it reverse this fraudulent charge.

I'm also going to report them to the Better Business Bureau, my state's U.S. Senators, and my U.S. Congressional representative.