Groupon Unauthorized monthly charges for Groupon Select Chicago

I rarely purchase Groupons, once or twice a year if that.  For the last 13 months the company has been making charges to my credit card for an unauthorized service called Groupon Select which's offers clients an addditional 25% off all Groupon purchases.  As a very, very low volume client, I would never utilize or authorize such a service; it wouldn't make any sense.  Because the monthly charges are relatively small, I didn't notice them until recently.

 I tried calling customer service and discovered they had shut down there telephone service dept.   Clients must use a snail-paced email inquiry system that appears to be based in India.  Over the next couple of weeks, my inquiry was bounced around to ten different people, each claiming that they were unable to refund charges.  They never answered my inquiries with specifics, only vague generalities and pronouncements  that they had done all they can.  None of these representaives could provide evidence that I ever subscribed to this service.  I believe this to be some sort of ongoing scam, possibly aimed at the elderly.  

They had my credit card details and made unauthorized charges to my account for a full year before I finally flagged them and notified my CC company to halt payments.  My inquiry was never taken seriously and no efforts were made to get to the bottom of it.  I strongly encourage Groupon users to scrutize all charges carefully.  In my case, I paid dearly to save a few bucks at a local restaurant.  DEfinitely not worth it!