Shopping Essentials Adaptive Marketing Hundreds of dollars of charges for "membership"- never knowingly agreed to any such "membership" or received "membership" information Omaha, Nebraska

After not using a certain credit card for many months, I noticed that my balance was increasing and, upon further inspection, realized that I was being charged a monthly fee of first $14.95, then $17.95, and more recently $20.95 by Shopping Essentials. On my credit card statement, it said "shoppingessen" followed by a series of numbers.

Having no idea what "shoppingessen" was, I called my credit card to dispute the charge. The customer service representative at my credit card said that they have received many complaints about the company, which was called "Shopping Essentials," and that no one at the credit card company could actually understand what that company did, other than it was some sort of "discount service" that people inadvertently sign up for when making other online purchases. She called Shopping Essentials (funny she had the number at hand) and conferenced me into the call.

The first person we spoke to at Shopping Essentials said I had signed up for the service in 2009 (!) when purchasing a Restaurant.com gift certificate. As a rather conscientious online shopper who never agrees to surveys or clicks on pop-up ads, I was surprised. I asked for my money back and to cancel my "membership" to what he said was a discount service to be used at Macys, JC Penney, etc. He said he could cancel my "membership" but could not give me a refund and to speak to his supervisor.

So, my credit card representative and I spoke to a supervisor. She said that I was receiving the benefit of their "membership service" when I shopped at certain stores. I told her that I had never seen any "membership agreement," or received any information whatsoever about their "service." I had never received a discount at Macy's and had no idea how I had gotten roped in in the first place. I was shocked when she offered to refund my money- totaling $350!!!

The bottom line is to be very careful when shopping on Restaurants.com. Read all of the fine print. And, if you have a credit card that you haven't used in a year and have set on automatic payments, make sure that no charges from Shopping Essentials are popping up!!