A Brilliant Scam

I got scammed. There's a shopping cart application that looks like a rebate but clicking on it signs up for a $10 monthly membership. They get financial information from the retailer. If you ignore or send their confirming email to a junk filter, your in. You have to opt out. 

If you already have an account, like Amazon, Ebay, PayPal, U.S. Air, Expedia, FTD, JoAnne, TigerDirect, InPhonic, WalMart, Target, and other "trusted" safe sites, all you needed to do was click the ad "for more details" and you're signed up. No purchase was necessary. They design the ads to look like the original website. If you did realize it was a third party ad and quickly closed the page without checking the "no" box located somewhere, your in again. That's what got me. They are smooth. If I had to fall for something eventually, at least this wasn't too embarrassing. 

The company is Shopper's Discounts or Web Loyalty and has no legitimate business other than operating a call center for taking complaints that wouldn't exist if they weren't in business. Nice job. Their money is made entirely from people not checking their accounts monthly or being unsure of charges listed and doing nothing. Know of anyone like that? The good news is they will do refunds. You can read more here. 

There are millions of customer complaints everywhere, yet their "business" seems to growing, adding more and bigger retailers. Customer power just isn't what it used to.