Fraud? Warning

[SMMAssociates]

I placed an order with "Cheaper Than Dirt" last night, and as the online "paperwork" completed, I was presented with a screen asking me to click on something for "Reservation Rewards".

Reading the fine print, you see that they're going to send your CC info to these people, who will bill you for some service or other.

What the billing will be for is an exercise in how to get a bogus charge removed from your account....

My daughter got bit by this a month or so ago, and while she was able to talk them out of the charge, the way things work it may take longer to find out that they didn't reverse the charge than your grace period with the CC issuer.

I didn't cancel the order - probably should have - but I did tell them to lose my address, as it would be my last.

Just FWIW.... :mad:

[stumbler]

$.02 - They may not be the only ones. Sites that do that get a "kick back" for the referral. Watch your long distance phone bills also. They have been known to switch carriers on people when they click on a "hot" spot.


Too bad that people abuse the net this way.

[SMMAssociates]

Hey Stumbler....

I got bit by one of those Long Distance scams a couple months back. Raised hell with everybody....

"Cramming", I think.... In essence somebody's computer calls your phone number collect. If anything (answering machine, human, pet, etc.) answers the call, you are billed for it at some obscene rate.

No option to accept or decline the call. Just pick up!

In my case, the business line (where I found this) is set up so that no human ever answers a call, nor can one. The phone "blinks" - about a half ring - and then transfers the call to uReach.com, the "great answering machine in the sky". It, of course, just like your $39.95 box from RS (or whatever you're using, if any) is incapable of accepting a collect call.

I also get detailed call logs from uReach - no inbound call was reported anywhere near that time and date.

(The advantage of uReach is that incoming calls or faxes are routed there if I'm using the business line "outbound" or not. I get paged with Caller-ID info when a message or fax is left.)

What bothered me, as it does with Cheaper Than Dirt, is that the folks who crammed my phone bill were known to be doing this and the carrier passed on the call anyway. Same goes for the "Reservations" people....

I don't mind a "click here to take a survey" sort of thing you'll see all the time ("BizRate"), but a big "Click Here" button with some fine print is inexcuseable if they're going to automatically charge you for the click....

I thought they were a sponsor here, but I don't see anything on the banners right now. Their response, btw, was to just agree to take me off their list. I won't be back until I get an apology and notice that they've dropped that scam.

[thehead7]

I, too, noticed that when I placed an order. I just closed it as another annoying popup and didn't really look at it...

Fortunately I don't have the problems most people do with 'cramming'. I have a Vonage phone that goes over the internet. I make and receive calls in a rather normal fasion, but I don't think I can take collect calls, or anything of that nature. 1900 numbers cannot be billed to the line, and all that.

Plus, it costs me considerably less than I was paying ma bell...

Conversely, I just got done cleaning up the leftovers of some guy scamming local cell phone stores (going around representing himself as the owner of our business). A PROPER check by these people would have totally thwarted his attempts, which Sprint and Cingular did, but Verizon did not... Oh, well, the guy's in jail, and I've had nice little conversations about him with his THREE probation officers... (I didn't know it was possible to have that many)...

I think I'll look into cheaperthandirt's little scam a bit more...

-Head

[Mustang]

Thanks for the heads up. It's getting more and more difficult keeping even half way informed about the internet, phone systems, etc.