Comments on: Webloyalty… sued.

By: Online retailers, marketing firms scam consumers for $1.4 billion | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:19:50 +0000

[...] The Commerce committee launched the investigation into the marketers’ practices back in May after complaints mounted from consumers about “mysterious charges” on their credit cards. [...]

By: tenzin

tenzin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 18:33:24 +0000

These thieves, without contributing anything good for the GDP, but 24/7 stealing innocent people money, should be hanged. If His Almighty has to judge the case, the verdict will be, “sentenced these Ghosts to serve in hell forever…”

By: E-tailers snagged in marketing ’scam’ blame customers « Interesting finds

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 17:23:09 +0000

[...] for the membership programs. But I’ve also read thousands of complaints, which can be found here, here, and here, among those that have claimed to have been duped are lawyers, computer [...]

By: Chris Jones

Chris Jones — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:24:21 +0000

I just bought a camera from Buy.com and had to navigate through the sleazy deceptive third party marketing affiliate to get my order going. I was tempted to cancel, having been taken by a similar outfit a couple of years ago when I bought tickets through Fandango. This page, and cnet's article, just renewed my outrage over this practice and just inspired this letter to Buy.com:

Hi,

While placing an order this week, I was disturbed to see that your company has affiliated with a click-through marketing company whose "offer" intrudes in the process during the checkout process. To say that I was disturbed is actually a gross understatement. I came very close to canceling my order and taking my business elsewhere. Had I not already committed the time to selecting the product on your website and filling out everything I would have abandoned it without hesitation.

See, I have been misled into signing up for a similar service on Fandango a couple of years ago and went through a great deal of trouble to get the 8 months worth of charges that I didn't previously notice credited back to me. They didn't want to do it, even though it was obvious to the rep that I didn't want the service and certainly wouldn't have intentionally agreed to it. The whole layout is very misleading, and you must admit that no one is going to read all of the fine print, because the whole thing APPEARS to just be a coupon much like other coupons that are given by merchants for doing business.

This is a sleazy way of getting business, and I suspect that you aren't hearing many complaints because either people eventually forget where they originally accidentally signed up for the service, or they deal with the marketer and never bother going back to the merchant. In my case I never did contact Fandango and I'm sure Fandango is assuming I must have been pleased with the "service" because they didn't hear a complaint from me. Rest assured, there are a great many dissatisfied people who aren't contacting you. Don't naively assume otherwise.

I urge you -- STRONGLY urge you -- to please consider discontinuing this relationship. You've gotten my money through sale of a product, and you don't need a couple more dollars from a sleazy, misleading, deceptive borderline criminal marketing company who can't bring themselves to market their product in a more honest, clear way. I can assure you that as long as your ordering process works as it does today, with the sleazy marketing outfit intruding in the process, I won't be buying anything from you. You do have competition who has every advantage you have, but without the third party. The camera I just ordered was available elsewhere for exactly the same price. I chose you because of my past relationship and because I knew the ordering process works as expected, with quick smooth delivery. How about leaving it at that and not doing me any additional favors of offering such "deals" from a third party?

I'll be back when your marketing affiliate is gone.

Best regards, C. Chris Jones

By: Rajneesh

Rajneesh — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:54:21 +0000

I would not have even cared to look at the $10 per month charges had it not been for my account with mint.com to track my monthly expenditure. I received a notification from mint.com that my account has been charged $10 and that "mint.com hates those". This made me search for reservation rewards and I came across this website. These bastards have been charging me for the last 16 months. On calling, the nice lady agreed to revert back last 2 months charges but for a full refund, she said that I need to complete a form and mail it back to them. It's sat and am waiting to see if they give my money back and send me the form.

I am going to make sure I receive all my money back.

By: Peter

Peter — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:50:03 +0000

I had this problem when I bought a game from Gamestop.com online. I promptly emailed gamestop about these thieving activities and this was their reply:

Dear Customer,

At the end of a purchase from GameStop.com/EBgames.com we have a link to the Reservation Rewards program. They offer customers the opportunity to receive an electronic gift voucher for GameStop.com/EBgames.com if the customer would like to sign up for a trial membership with Reservation Rewards.

In order to sign up for this program customers would have to type their email address twice and click on the button labeled YES, I have read and agree to the Offer and Billing Details and authorize GameStop.com/EBgames.com to securely transfer my name, address and credit or debit card information to Reservation Rewards for billing and benefit processing. I understand that the first 30 days of benefits are free and that I will be billed $12 a month thereafter and may cancel my membership at any time.

Thank you for your feedback concerning the program. We respect your opinion and will take your remarks into consideration as we evaluate the benefits and value this program has for our customers.

Best Regards,

John

Customer Service Supervisor

Well, … Needless to say that they lost me as a customer because I NEVER did what they say and surely NEVER gave anyone the right to steal money out of my account. So if this is Gamestop’s point taken then I will take my business elsewhere from now on. My only hope is that other people will too, so they don’t get scammed out of their hard earned money for nothing.

Be warned, these sites allow this scamming apparently ...

By: PJ

PJ — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 03:31:28 +0000

I knew someone who worked there around the time of the first suit in 06, but left well before the second. A group of us were out and over drinks my gfs brother told me quite a few interesting things. The retailers receive a huge amount of money for referring their clients to these “programs”. Basically, these reserve rewards programs have over 1 mm active members because many do not know about the charges. I’m curious how many of their “1 mm clients” have been clients for a long period of time, and actually USE the sites. The sites like staples.com, etc, are promised loads of money, on a per hundred thousand hits or on some sort of percentage of people who clicked the offer to those who signed up. So the websites are just as guilty. Webloyalty has to build a custom redirect page that takes you away from the site you are on to get your credit card info on THEIR servers, then send you back to the site you were on. Anyone in the company can access your credit card information. Unreal.

By: Tim L.Oliver

Tim L.Oliver — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 02:48:59 +0000

No,I’ve never used Continental’s website. It was Orbitz’s website that got me.Of course,customer service won’t know anything about it,just do a charge back and get a new card with a different account number.

By: DVigar

DVigar — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:01:46 +0000

I just got scammed as well. The only online site I have used for purchases in the last few months was Continental Airlines. Has anyone else had a similar experience while using Continrental’s site? I called their customer service and was told they had never heard of this.

By: jgalk

jgalk — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 00:25:14 +0000

By the way, when you call, make SURE you ask for your money back. The rep tried twice to simply say, “I canceled your account, is there anything else I can do for you?” Intentionally skipping the fact that I had also asked for a refund. So I told him, “Yes, I want my money back.” He actually tried slipping this past me several times, until he finally said it would be returned and gave me an amount.