Internet Marketers Just Want Your Credit Card Number

How many of us receive e-mail offers in our inbox, trying to sell us diet plans, "free" credit reports, class reunion locating services, or money-making opportunities? It's unfortunate that there are probably some legitimate internet entrepreneurs trying to make a living selling a worthwhile product or service, who have to compete for attention among spammers who seem to find ways around rules governing unwanted spam.

The latest trend seems to be a technique in which a marketer or spammer, depending upon how you want to classify them, sends an e-mail to you because you somehow got on someone's mailing list. Free credit reports are a good example. With all the concern about identity theft going on, a spammer will send out an e-mail blast offering to give you a copy of your credit report for free if you'll just give the spammer your credit card number. Once the card number is given out, you have about ten days to rescind the credit report offer, or you'll be signed up for a recurring $30.00 a month charge. The monthly charge is usually only mentioned in the fine print, or when you click on a "Terms and Conditions" link, provided you can find it.

A recent e-mail offer for a class reunion service states that "someone is looking for you, find out who." You click on a series of links, just in case you're curious to find out who, only to be told that no one is looking for you at this particular time, but that you don't want to miss out on your next high school or college reunion. You can start out with a trial offer, pay every six months, or pay by the year. Buried in the fine print are membership fees and a statement that if your credit card "doesn't have sufficient credit to cover charges, the company can keep trying to bill you for part of the membership fee until they've collected all of it." Nice. You may have signed up for a trial offer of only a few dollars, and didn't realize that you had to take action to prevent your credit card from being hit.

Some money-making opportunities promise to sign you up as a participant in their distribution process and you will be paid commissions on whatever you sell. Once you pay the initial entry fee of $29.95 or $49.95 or whatever it is, there is usually buried in the fine print, that the credit card you used to pay the entry fee will be charged "a non-refundable $199.25" or some amount similar to it, in thirty days, unless you call to cancel. In doing some due diligence in trying to decide whether a specific money-making opportunity was right for one person, a well-known company that uses a TV actor to endorse them, tries to sign you up for their plan for just $29.95. After you sign up, you then become obligated to pay web site hosting fees, a monthly recurring membership fee, and an annual fee that is automatically renewed every year. In addition, there are cancellation fees and late fees that get charged, if you don't submit a request to cancel in writing (you can't do it by telephone). And the best part, is that in the fine print, you've obligated yourself to a contractual relationship once you give out the credit card number. Even if you write in to cancel, the company considers you to be on the hook for the rest of the year, and if you don't pay, you get turned over to a collection agency.

A number of internet venders that use your consent to your credit card to make a trial purchase before deciding to buy the whole enchilada, have managed to construct an online document that obligates you to a whole host of charges that are scheduled to occur throughout the year that you may not have any knowledge of, until after they've been charged. Particularly devious is the annual fee renewal which has been known to have been charged to a person's account anyway, even though they've cancelled, because the "renewal" department is separate from the "sales" or "customer service" department! And because some internet venders use more than one name, they may run a charge through under another name in the hopes the charge won't be noticed or disputed in time. A few really obnoxious purveyors of goods online will trick you into spending a few dollars on your credit card for a trial sample or period of some sort, obligate you to a long-term commitment of a much higher monthly amount, say $75 or $150 a month, and then when you finally get wise and cancel, the "merchant" then sells your "debt" to a collection agency for 20-50% of the balance they claim is owed, so that the merchant still collects more money from the collection agency and leaves you, the consumer, with the abusive collection agency tactics. And of course, the collection agency can profane your credit record until you go through the long and laborious process of disputing everything. So, it's all really a variation of the identity theft scam hitting the country.

While there are bound to be some internet marketers who have done things the right way, by gauging your interest in their goods and services through e-mailing, and offering to stop if you indicate a lack of interest, there are many others who just want access to your credit card number with the intention of obligating you contractually to recurring payments that you never intended. Also buried in the fine print with many of these hucksters, is the legal declaration that if you sue them, you must sue them in Connecticut, or Idaho, or Hawaii, but never in the jurisdiction in which you reside. Many of these venders won't accept returns and refuse to offer refunds of any kind, in effect stating that "once the credit card is charged, the money is theirs," unless your credit card company allows you to dispute the charges. So, it's just wise to make sure you know who you're doing business with, before giving out your credit card number. That 10-day free trial period or that $1.95 or $3.95 shipping charge may be obligating you to a lot more that only you can stop and that may ruin your credit.