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Last month I decided to use http://fandango.com to buy movietickets to the opening night of SoaP. I only chose them because movietickets.com did not have tickets at the particular theater I wanted to go to.
So I bought the tickets, and at the end of the transaction, there was screen telling me that I could save $10 off my next purchase at Fandango if I just put in my email address. So why not, I entered some bullshit into a mytrashmail account, assuming it was just going to be spam as a trade-off for $10 off my next purchase.
So I look at my credit card statement online a few days ago, and I see this funny charge for $10 from "WLI RESERVATION REWARDS."
I google them up, and I find hundreds, if not thousands of complaints about this company.
http://badbusinessbureau.com/results.asp...p;submit=Search
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1303811/posts
http://www.lurid.org/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=227
As it turns out, there is a lawsuit against these fuckers now.
http://www.boston.com/business/artic...eter_ran_scam/
Suit says online marketer ran scam
Shoppers allegedly tricked into paying fee
By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff | September 12, 2006
Customers of several popular online retailers, including Fandango.com, Priceline.com, and Staples.com, were victims of an alleged Internet scheme in which their credit cards were charged a monthly fee for a ``discount club" membership they had never requested, according to a class action lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit accuses Webloyalty.com, an online marketing services company in Norwalk, Conn., of engaging in a ``coupon click fraud" scam in which credit card information was transferred to Webloyalty by its dozens of online partners -- such as Movietickets.com, Petco.com, and FTD.com -- without consumers' consent.
``These are huge retailers, and they are complicit in the scheme," said Boca Raton, Fla., lawyer Stuart A. Davidson, whose San Diego law firm, Lerach Coughlin, filed the lawsuit. ``They are reaping a percentage of the money that Webloyalty is stealing from the nation's consumers."
Webloyalty, which is accused of violating consumers' privacy rights and engaging in deceptive business practices that have netted the company huge fees, denied any wrongdoing.
``The allegations are completely without merit, and the lawsuit misrepresents the manner in which we conduct business," said Rick Fernandes, Webloyalty's chief executive. ``It's chock full of inaccuracies, and we intend to win the case and collect our attorney fees in the process."
Fernandes declined to detail those alleged misrepresentations or inaccuracies, saying, ``I'd rather not talk about that at this time."
Los Angeles-based Fandango, a codefendant in the case, did not return a call for comment.
The alleged scheme worked this way, according to the suit: After consumers made online purchases from various Web retailers, a pop-up window appeared on their computer screens promising a $10 coupon on their next purchase. If consumers entered their e-mail addresses to redeem that coupon, their personal information, including credit or debit card number, was automatically transferred to Webloyalty.
Webloyalty then automatically billed the consumer's credit or debit card a $9 or $10 monthly fee for a membership in its ``Reservations Rewards" discount club.
If consumers did not cancel the membership by contacting Webloyalty within 30 days, they were charged a recurring monthly fee.
E-mails notifying consumers of the cancellation policy were typically disregarded by consumers as spam, or automatically screened out as spam by e-mail systems, according to the suit.
Furthermore, the Reservations Rewards program offered no benefit to consumers, according to the suit; instead, Webloyalty kept the monthly fees and paid its Web retailer clients a ``per-customer" fee for each consumer who "signed up" for the club.
``In our mind, this company was run just like a securities fraud boiler room, and just like those companies they earned millions of dollars off the backs of consumers," said Davidson, who added that ``tens or hundreds of thousands" of consumers have been victims of the alleged scheme.
Webloyalty's roughly 75 e-commerce business partners also include or have included LaneBryantcatalog.com, LillianVernon.com, AmericanGreetings.com, Tiger Direct.com, EBGames.com, classmates.com, AllPosters.com, JoAnn.com, uBid.com, and 123inkjets.com.
Shoppers allegedly tricked into paying fee
By Sacha Pfeiffer, Globe Staff | September 12, 2006
Customers of several popular online retailers, including Fandango.com, Priceline.com, and Staples.com, were victims of an alleged Internet scheme in which their credit cards were charged a monthly fee for a ``discount club" membership they had never requested, according to a class action lawsuit filed yesterday in US District Court in Massachusetts.
The lawsuit accuses Webloyalty.com, an online marketing services company in Norwalk, Conn., of engaging in a ``coupon click fraud" scam in which credit card information was transferred to Webloyalty by its dozens of online partners -- such as Movietickets.com, Petco.com, and FTD.com -- without consumers' consent.
``These are huge retailers, and they are complicit in the scheme," said Boca Raton, Fla., lawyer Stuart A. Davidson, whose San Diego law firm, Lerach Coughlin, filed the lawsuit. ``They are reaping a percentage of the money that Webloyalty is stealing from the nation's consumers."
Webloyalty, which is accused of violating consumers' privacy rights and engaging in deceptive business practices that have netted the company huge fees, denied any wrongdoing.
``The allegations are completely without merit, and the lawsuit misrepresents the manner in which we conduct business," said Rick Fernandes, Webloyalty's chief executive. ``It's chock full of inaccuracies, and we intend to win the case and collect our attorney fees in the process."
Fernandes declined to detail those alleged misrepresentations or inaccuracies, saying, ``I'd rather not talk about that at this time."
Los Angeles-based Fandango, a codefendant in the case, did not return a call for comment.
The alleged scheme worked this way, according to the suit: After consumers made online purchases from various Web retailers, a pop-up window appeared on their computer screens promising a $10 coupon on their next purchase. If consumers entered their e-mail addresses to redeem that coupon, their personal information, including credit or debit card number, was automatically transferred to Webloyalty.
Webloyalty then automatically billed the consumer's credit or debit card a $9 or $10 monthly fee for a membership in its ``Reservations Rewards" discount club.
If consumers did not cancel the membership by contacting Webloyalty within 30 days, they were charged a recurring monthly fee.
E-mails notifying consumers of the cancellation policy were typically disregarded by consumers as spam, or automatically screened out as spam by e-mail systems, according to the suit.
Furthermore, the Reservations Rewards program offered no benefit to consumers, according to the suit; instead, Webloyalty kept the monthly fees and paid its Web retailer clients a ``per-customer" fee for each consumer who "signed up" for the club.
``In our mind, this company was run just like a securities fraud boiler room, and just like those companies they earned millions of dollars off the backs of consumers," said Davidson, who added that ``tens or hundreds of thousands" of consumers have been victims of the alleged scheme.
Webloyalty's roughly 75 e-commerce business partners also include or have included LaneBryantcatalog.com, LillianVernon.com, AmericanGreetings.com, Tiger Direct.com, EBGames.com, classmates.com, AllPosters.com, JoAnn.com, uBid.com, and 123inkjets.com.
I will obviously never use Fandango again, and I will refuse to support any business that supports this service!
Oh, and I called and bitched out the motherfucker on the phone for that company. I managed to get taken off their list, as well as get the charges reversed.
It was comedy gold having him verify my email address over the phone, "[email protected]." I asked him if he knew what that meant.
Him: No
Me: It's exactly what I think of your stupid company!
-a
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