Hey looks like the wheels of fate have picked me up in their treads and dealt me out as a scam victim. Someone got a hold of my debit VISA #, which I only use online at places I trust (Amazon.com, etc.) but apparently I trusted one too many sites, or someone in one of the places got a hold of my info and levied some charges against my account. Luckily I noticed these pretty quickly, which is surprising actually since I normally don’t watch the activity on my account all that often (or at least up ’til now I didn’t).
First off I’ve cancelled my card and will have to wait up to two weeks to get another. No ATM / debit charges for me for 2 weeks. AND now all the sites I’ve set up to auto-charge this card (Mobil Speedpass, Maine Transpass, AT&T Cellphone, Audible.com, etc) need to get updated before they send me nasty notes. Probably about time I retired that number anyways, seeing as I memorized it about a year ago and thus it’s far too easy to impulse buy online.
Today I’ve been making phone calls trying to get more info and get charges reversed. Luckily they are small charges (mostly $1 pre-auth charges, though the ‘real charges’ could come through at any moment).
Here’s the summary so far: (I figured I’d provide the info here in case anyone else has similar charges and googles around and finds my page)
Charges to TLG SHOPPERS ADV PURCH
Turns out that TLG is Trilegiant. I found this website (http://www.consumeraffairs.com/scam_alerts/tlg.html) and they are basically an umbrella company to a bunch of somewhat sleazy looking websites like shoppersadvantage.com and NetMarket. Calling these folks was n’ar completely useless since they wouldn’t listen to me explaining that these $1 charges were just someone checking if the card was valid and that the actual charge, probably for much more. They insisted these must be ‘membership charges’ and that I could have signed up for these from a number of sites like AOL and etc. I tried to explain that I KNOW I DIDN’T MAKE THESE CHARGES but they said my name wasn’t in their customer support system yet and I should check back at the end of the week, though I may need to wait 2 or 3 weeks for my ‘membership to be processed’. I’m going to call these folks again in a little bit to see if I can get someone with more of a clue. (Note – I just called them again and got a more abbreviated version of the same dance, but this time I felt like the person actually heard what I said, but he said I ‘wasn’t in the system’ yet but should be by Thursday (much different than the 2 or 3 weeks mentioned above)
Next charge was to BLOCKBUSTER ONLINE. They found me in their system and were able to reverse the charges and cancel the account promptly. They gave me the e-mail address the person used to fill out the membership form, I dropped it a note and it didn’t bounce. I’m debating dropping them a longer note 🙂
Next charge was to TWX MAGAZINE ORDER. Found out they had subscribed to TEEN PEOPLE, SEVENTEEN and ESCAPE BOATING magazine. They asked if I was sure that someone else hadn’t placed the order for these magazines and I explained that I was 36, my son is only 20 months old, and I don’t own a boat! I had the order cancelled though they said I may still receive a few issues. Golly, can’t wait.
Final call was to STAR CLUB REWARDS who said they hadn’t actually charged my card the $1, that was just what it looked like since they had verfied it was active when they created the membership (with the same fake e-mail used elsewhere)
That’s it. I know I’m lucky compared to most, especially considering this card was my debit VISA it could have been alot worse. Note to self, don’t use that online anymore.
Colleen,
I and my wife have been fallen victims to a real identity theft. Someone has been using our personal information including social security number, the place of residence, etc to sign up for credit cards, finance computers, and ATVs. Most of the activities took place June – July of 2004, and it was not until a collection agency called us recently for “unpaid balance” of Dell Computer that we never bought.
We went through a lengthy process to correct this, including contacting and placing credit fraud alert with all three credit report agencies (Transunion, Equifax & Experian), reporting and filing a case with the Police, contacting each creditor where the theft had applied for financing…
Today, I was checking my debit card statement online and discovered that a charge in the amount of $34.70 has been made by TWX Time Magazine.
Now, we have never used the debit card online other than withdrawing money from ATM. The one and the only time we used the debit card in the past 4 years is when we ordered a credit report through Experian recently using the debit card.
Looking at your thread on Feb 15, you said that MetaReward was recently acquired by Experian. Could this be a mere coincidence? It seems all too connected to be a coincidence. Could you share with me your research on MetaReward and Experian? It is ironic that the very steps that I took to protect and recover myself from the identify fraud have given a birth to another scam…
-Calvin
Hi Calvin! Wow, you had the real thing. My sympathies, and I’m sorry it’s happened to you again.
You’re probably familiar with the routine. Be sure to cancel directly through TWX and not just by protesting the charge to your bank, because that will get rid of the one charge, but won’t necessarily prevent future charges. Call TWX directly. TWX is also known as Synapse Connect. They were very prompt and unargumentative about cancelling my Teen etc magazines; I didn’t have a charge to reverse because it was still at the temporary-charge stage, which probably made it easier.
To help us: PLEASE BE SURE to ask for every little bit of information they have about you, name, address, email, including where the original lead came from. Some of us are trying to track down the source of all this, and it could be helpful.
I had to ask for a supervisor to get anything out of them infomation-wise, but if you’re firm but polite they should acquiesce. The supervisor actually called me back within an hour.
You will probably still get a magazine or two. You may also get a welcome card in the mail. Hang onto it, and keep ALL documents you get in relation to this scam. My TWX card gave me the clue about orangebrick.com and metareward.com.
TWX 800.321.6247 (I think I called this number)
877.781.3425 (gleaned from another blog)
You can write me at trispy27@hotmail.com. Your concern about Experian is very interesting.
–Colleen
Hey folks, looks like I got hit with this too. Interesting tidbit: The address the TLG folks used on me is my OLD address, a house I’ve not lived in for a year and a half. I don’t like there anymore, so I couldn’t opt-out of their stupid offer. I also got hit with 3 $5.99 charges from Faces.com, (866-860-8661) where the CSR told me she didn’t recognize that name, and that the 800 number I called was for an outfit called CompuPlus benefits.
I got hit today with this, when my credit card company called me to tell me I had an unusual high number of charges on my debit card. Blockbuster Online, TWX, TLG Stores, and Free Credit Report.com (Experian) were the ones noted. I denied the charges, asked that my Debit card be immediately cancelled, and was asked by the representative if I had AOL. When I said “yes”, she stated that AOL sells their subscriber billing information, including– yes, credit or debit card numbers, and the major company Trilegiant, then does all the deceptive, fraudelent things that have been mentioned here!! Blockbuster Online, Experian, various banks, Avis, etc., sell their subscriber billing info to Trilegiant!! There have been several articles written about this deceptiveness– put in “Trilegiant” keyword, and browse through!! I also called my bank that issued the Debit card to notify them that I was contacted by the Credit Card agency “Star” to be alerted to fraudulent charges, and made sure they knew to cancel my Debit Card, and to issue me a new one. I also challenged the one Blockbuster Online charge that had been posted as of yesterday – $10.49, and the bank immediately faxed me the form I needed to do so, and I faxed it back to them. I called AOL and chewed them out!! I asked that no information of mine be sold or submitted to anyone!! I also blocked “Premium Services” on AOL, so that I won’t get any “trial” offers. Also, what I found out, if any of you order online, and get a page where it asks you to “try” something (trial offer”), and even if you say “no”, you will get these charges, because this info comes up after you have entered your credit card info!! I’m gonna see what happens when I receive my new debit card… If the charges continue to show up, I will call these companies directly and cancel, and note everything, so that I can then alert the Illinois Attorney General.
Wow! Thank you EVERYONE for sharing. I would have been on here in Feb I am sure – but I am one of those people who .. doesn’t read every charge on their statement every month. I have received only 2 $8.99 charges so far…That I can find. I am searching through my online statements though looking for anything suspicious..
Ok, well. After reading over half of these comments – and reading the one where someone finally received their “cards” from these people… It clicked. I too received a card for GREAT FUN. After going through ALL OF MY PAPERS ON MY DESK… I found it – flipped it over and saw it was related to the Enterainment Book I bought in 2004. Yeah I bought one. I got damn good use out of it too. I also see that it was printed by the lovely Trilegiant Company.
I never ordered this card! I am very shocked that this happened and pissed that no one answers the phone when they say they are open.
If it matters to anyone the card of mine that was charged was my GM Credit CARD It is issued by Household Bank. The charges were for….
02/02/2005 02/03/2005 TLG*GREATFN(acctnumber)FEB 800-285-5903 CT $8.99
03/03/2005 03/04/2005 TLG*GREATFN(acctnumber)MAR 800-285-5903 CT $8.99
Initially this morning I did call my GMCARD – the woman told me there that she has people calling about TLG often she even rattled off some of the names you guys mentioned. She has heard people complain and say Oh yeah I ordered that…. Anyhow the only thing she said that confused me was that EVEN if I cancel my card that since it is a recurring charge on the card it will come through for that account number until they stop charging it. ???? What would be the point in cancelling it then? That made no sense! So I can call and cancel and TLG can STILL CHARGE MY CARD! WHAT! Ugh!
I am glad most all of you are getting your situations taken care of. I must admit I was getting scared while reading these comments, because I am a full-time student holding a full-time job – I wasn’t going to have time to investigate and call all the places you guys had to. I am hoping that once I call and cancel the membership – if their offices are ever open…. This issue will be solved. You better believe I will be putting this page in my favourites and also posting a link to it on my blog as well for any of my victimized friends to see!
Thanks again – and GOOD LUCK to all!
Shannon
A.B.–I don’t have AOL. The vendors who made two of the unauthorized charges in my case said the referral came from megareward.com or its henchmen. However your comment, if it is indeed true, gives me yet another reason to dislike AOL.
Shannon–There must have been a misunderstanding. Any time you change your credit card number, they always caution you to contact any recurring-charge vendors to give them your new number.
Everybody–Don’t just protest the charge to your credit card bank. Contact the vendor directly (Great Fun or whoever) to cancel the membership, or they’ll keep bugging you forever. Most of the vendors I called were accommodating about reversing the charges; the only one that wasn’t, Trilegiant, I will protest in writing. That’ll show’em. I am a vendor myself, and believe me, credit card protests are a pain to deal with (you’d be surprised how often people don’t have any memory of buying something.)
A very interesting tidbit on the ID Alert paperwork that Experian sent me:
“You have the right to obtain documents relating to fraudulent transactions made or accounts opened using your personal information. A creditor or other business must give you copies of applications and other business records relating to transactions and accounts that resulted from the theft of your identity, if you ask for them in writing. A business may ask you for proof of your identity, a police report, and an affidavit before giving you the documents. It also may specify an address for you to send your request. Under certain circumstances, a business can refuse to provide you with these documents. See http://www.consumer.gov/idtheft.”
Well, I have yet to find out how to do the affidavit thingy, but the local police were happy to oblige me by writing the report. Things progress, albeit sluggishly.
–Colleen
I had the same TWX thing show up on my bank account several times and now I know who the culprit is..Apparently, Fredericks of Hollywood is where TWX got my info.
O.K.– So now that I have had my Debit card cancelled, and am disputing with the bank, the one Blockbuster Online charge of $10.49 that came through– I still have to call the companies and cancel my “recurring” charges that have not happened yet– because the credit card company that issues the Debit card called me to notify/warm me that there were excessive charges on my card, and when I denied these charges, they said that they would deny the charges????
I thought that once you cancel your card, it’s cancelled for sure and that no recurring charges or any other charges can be made unless you (ME) call the companies that you would have recurring charges on– such as cable, etc…. Once I get my new card with the new numbers, I will have to make sure I go to those accounts that are charged monthly with my debit card– cable, cellphone, etc.
Also, after researching this issue via the internet, Trilegiant is under investigation in a few states for this type of deceptive scam. Again, they deal with certain businesses– even own some of them, and when you purchase anything on their website, right before you “send” the final page for submission with your order, address, credit card/debit card information, you’ll get a “popup” about a “trial” membership or other “special” purchase. The deceptive part is that if you happen to hit “yes” by accident, you have just signed up for a free trial or service!! I do recall getting one when I ordered some Victoria’s Secret, but I press the “no thanks” button!! Also, some credit card companies, and AOL subscribe to Trilegiant for their various services. The one thing that I understand that has gotten people like myself into this mess is when AOL advertised their new “Privacy Wall” service, because I got billed $3.95 for this too! I didn’t even order “Privacy Wall” because I already have a firewall installed!!
Since this isn’t really a case of “Identity Theft” should I go ahead and get a police report and put a “Fraud Alert” on my credit reports? HELP!!
I was able to finally get ahold of GreatFun today. After speaking with someone who barely spoke english – and trying to explain to her that I DIDN’T WANT ANYTHING FROM THEM – She claims they will refund me $8.99 and cancel my membership. She tried to sell me about 3 other products while I was on the phone with her! Yikes.
Hopefully they cancel my membership and stop charging me.
And Colleen – what GM Card told me didn’t seem to make any sense either. I just can’t believe that after you cancel a card they would let that kind of thing still get charged to the account! I don’t know how they wouldn’t have understood me, but maybe that is the case.
Looks like this “Trielgiant” got me as well
They charged my credit card $89.99 for what I have no clue, I never signed up with these guys. What a hassle, This kind of practice is morally wrong and should be stopped. Imagine all those who just sweep it under the rug. My credit card company is fighting this, we will see the outcome
I will be happy to post any updates as they become available to me. The off shoot that got me was TLG*BUYERS ADV. All remember “the squeaky wheel gets the grease !!” . This has to stop
No company should have the right to charge without clear consent anything on someone’s credit card
This can cause sure disaster, and after reading other complaints it does not just end there.
Just an update on my situation– I called Blockbuster Video yesterday (even though my bank stated they would investigate), and got my money credited back!! Blockbuster said they had a fake e-mail sent to them to confirm my confirmation– just like previous people on this site said, and to make a long story short– the Customer Service Rep was very friendly, didn’t encourage me to continue the service– and stated she would cancel the account. I thought the credit back to my account would take longer, and am satisfied with Blockbuster’s response.
No other charge attempts have been made to my now cancelled Debit account and/or checking account. They were all prevented and denied by the credit card company who alerted me to the pending, unauthorized charges. I’m just waiting for my new Debit card, which I will hopefully get by the end of the week… I’ll keep people posted!!
Well interesting I found this site so quick
Here is mine posted about 1 hour ago on my account. I remember exactly what happened to I got a phone call someone trying to ask me about my experience with my visa card. Asked if I still lived at the address I am living at told me I was entered into a 25 thousand dollar giveaway. And that they had a gift for me for answering her questions. She asked a bunch of benign questions about how I liked my card service which card I thought was the best etc. All benign I never gave out any personal info. She then told me for my free gift I had a choice of magazines and listen them off. I said I wanted PC world as my free magazine. She then proceeded to tell me that PC world was the only magazine that they asked a handling fee of 8.99 for. I promptly told her I wasn’t interested in the free magazine then and she hung up on me. I have been watching my account waiting on a wire transfer when I notice my available balance dropped by about 9 dollars so I waited for it to post and here it is.
PURCHASE / 03-09-05 TLG*GREATFN********MAR 800-285-5903 CT $8.99
My bank is, soon to be was, Community Credit Union. I have never used any of the services mentioned above and I rarely use my card for anything but paypal and buy.com. I can’t imagine how these people got my card number and what bothers me even more is they acted as if they represented VISA. We need to figure out who is acting as their processor and go after their sponsorship. Some card processor forgot to do their due diligence on a company that is costing many cardholders time and money.
Add another to the list.
Dallas
Compass Bank
charges from both tlg and blockbuster
I have called both. Blockbuster was courteous and agreed to refund everything.
Tlg was not…it’s only a dollar but maybe that’s the point.
I also cancelled my card.
The ipod scam sounds intriguing but where did they get our info. Someone with the power to trace this needs to get on it right away.
The only strange thing that I can think of is that I bought a new mac and they offered me a free trial to mac world. Since a lot of the complaints revolve around magazines this popped into mind, but I never gave them my CC info.
It seems like our info had to come from a large source, we are from all over the place and from several banks…amazon.com? Equifax? who knows…
I am going to put a fraud watch on my account as colleen said to do.
Anything else I should watch for?
Pauldy, Ryan & Others:
What you need to do is to first notify your bank credit card company and alert them that unauthorized charges have been made to your account. You should also tell them to cancel the credit/debit card the unauthorized charges have been made on, and to issue you a new one with a new number.
The bank should send/fax you a formal form in which to have the unauthorized amount investigated. You need to ask for this, if they don’t offer. Send/Fax it back to them immediately after filling out. Keep a copy for yourself.
Also, it can’t hurt to put a “Fraud Alert” on your Credit Report. However, since in my research this past week, I found out that these issues may have actually arose with people obtaining credit reports on “Experian” or “FreeCreditReport.com”, you should go to TransUnion.com and request the “Fraud Alert”. TransUnion will then submit the “Fraud Alert” to Experian and Equifax.
Amazon.com does not sell anyone’s information. The problems with this “FRAUD” are with either Trilegiant, or Equifax. A lot of companies– AOL, Credit Card Companies, Online Companies (Victoria’s Secret, Frederick’s of Hollywood, Just for Me, etc.) have a “Free Trial Offer” that pops up after you have submitted your personal and credit card info for your order. Yes, you can click on “No, thanks”, but the info gets sent anyhow. Trilegiant and their many subsidiaries own this business. Again, when you order a credit report from Experian or “FreeCreditReport.com”, they send your credit/debit info out to these businesses. At the Los Angeles Better Business Bureau, “FreeCreditReport.com” (DBA as “ConsumerInfo.com”) rates an “F” for this type of deceptive practice.
I’m also gonna file a report with the Illinois Attorney General’s Office… Good Luck to you!
I haven’t used the free credit report service. If I haven;t used one of these services how would they get my CC information from a pop up. I paid for one years ago but not any time recently. Is there still a possibility that this is an individual or group of individuals that have access to this information through their job or what not. I menton this because of all of the random fake emails. Even if TLG is seedy i still am not convinced that they are seedy enough to mak eup email to stall until its to late to get your money back. It seems logical that someone has taken this information to get for example, free ipods, amongst other things in a difficult way to trace. I guess I may never know but I am not convinced on any of these ideas
Oh sorry, i didn’t read carefrully. I guess the pop up can come at anytime i am purchasing something ? but still why the fake email accounts?
Ryan,
The fake email accounts is obviously one of the fraudlent components to this scam. Usually when you do a 30-day “trial”, you have to cancel before the trial is over. If these fraudulent companies use a “fake” e-mail address to do these “trials”, there’s no way YOU, ME, WE, US– could know that this fraudulent action was done, and if there is no response after the 30-day trial using these “fake” e-mail addresses, because of course– these “fake” e-mail addresses aren’t OURS, a charge is on your credit/debit card!
So basically a company like Blockbuster would sign up with TLG (or whoever the originator is) to gather your info through a pop-up. Then at their offices people are then typing away, signing you up to Blockbuster online with a fake email address. It seems too obvious. It’s not that hard to trace(for the right people) where they signed up from, especially if it istable) That’s not to say that isn’t the explanation.
OK, all of mine were set up through net-flip. Like the others, this lets tlg of the hook (even if they are slimy). I am pretty sure that the “Ipod scam” is therefore the correct one. ALL that needs to be done is to find out who “refererred” the fake me through netflip.
Hey guys, if you go read this blog
http://www.intelliot.com/blog/archives/2005/01/22/free-mac-mini-from-freeminimacscom/
you’ll find that Blockbuster and Trilegiant are two of the “offers” involved in those get-a-free-iPod (or in this case, Mac mini) sites. I think Matt’s original theory about us being referral fodder is pretty likely. All I can guess is that using us to “complete” the required offers is safer than actually using our credit cards to buy stuff outright.
I’ve been seeing more and more reports in the news lately about consumer info being stolen, compromised, and hacked. Choicepoint was only the tip of the iceberg.
I got a call on March 9th from someone from a webhosting service
asking if I had charged some webspace on my Bank of America debit
card. She cancelled the charge and recommended that I cancel the
card. (I’m in California, by the way)
Called Bank of America immediately. At that point only a $10.84
charge from Blockbuster Online and a $5.95 charge from Amerikal
Nutraceutical (specializing in anti-aging cremes and vitamins) were
listed and a third charge from Appera Whitening was pending for $6.95.
I cancelled the card. The next day the last chage came through – TLG
Netmarket for $1.00.
Found this website yesterday and I have to agree it’s the Free iPod
offer and that someone stole our credit card numbers so that they
can farm for referrals. I noticed that three out of the four companies
that charged to my account are also listed in this URL about the Free
iPod offer (I have the hardest time not writing the word SCAM each
time i type “offer”) http://www.clearstatic.org/node/view/591
I’m sure if I looked around more, I’d discover that some subsidiary of
Amerikal Nutraceutical (whose name is so delightfully questionable –
“Well, we can’t really call ourselves Pharmaceuticals because we sell
questionable vitamins and cremes but if we made up our own fake
magical word, it’ll make it look like our products “do” things…horray!”)
is also one of these iPod lists.
Oh yeah, and I received some whitening creme – marking it “Refused”
and sending it back.
Thank you all for the information – nice to know I’m not alone.
One thing I just thought of – each of our charges is thought of as a “referral” and count toward these people getting an iPod. I would suspect that the fake
e-mail addresses (supposedly us) were used as part of the referral and are
linked to the person making the fake charges as proof of the referral. (I would
expect they’d try to keep pretty good records since these companies don’t
want to hemorrhage iPods due to illegitimate referrals) So if the ‘Free iPod’
companies are legitimate, then this information can be traced and the jerks
can be busted.
…and that would be beautiful.
Yes, Michael, that’s the angle I’m working on. I’ve got my police report and affidavit in the works now.
By the way, I read lengthily on one of the Free iPod discussions, and those people have got it down to a science…there are conga lines of folks signing up as each others’ referrals, each waiting their turn to be at the head of the line…offering each other gmail invitations, presumably to use those accounts so their real emails don’t fill up with spam…and yes, people really do receive the iPods and Minis. That’s unfortunate, because it just adds fuel to the fire.
We’ve apparently become victims of somebody trying to shortcut that system.
The “offerers” do claim to authenticate all referrals, and in fact are reported to invalidate quite a few of them. I can’t help but wonder just what the authentication procedure entails.
BTW I discovered TWX is Time Warner, duh. The largest magazine publisher there is.
I am working the same angle as Colleen. As much as I want to catch the person who did it, I think it would be more interesting to know where these people mined the information?(from where they work?)
Fyi-just like the others said…don’t waste your time/money calling netflip/metareward. The phone line is not only a maze but at one point I actually got a phone message that said that they DO NOT EVEN take phonecalls and that I would have to email them. I’m still waiting for a response from this email…
The same thing happened to me the end of Feb. I received a package from Columbia House Dvd’s which I did not order and the invoice said they had charged my visa check card. Funny this charge never showed up on my account. I then checked my account online and noticed 9 different charges on my account. 6 from TLG, 1 from TWX, 1 from blockbuster and 1 from a web hosting company. I called the bank and cancelled my card. Went to the bank to report all of the charges as fraud on an affidavit. The bank will do their own investigation. Called all the phone numbers that were on my bank statement and cancelled the 8 memberships I had supposedly signed up for. Also asked them for any and all info they had on the transaction. They were very free to give that to me. Netflip is where I supposedly signed up for these services and a fake email address was used through mail.com. They even had my challenge question I use online. Found info on the last charge online and the site was from the netherlands and emailed them and got all the info about the purchase of services. Yes there was a name, address, email address, login id, ip address, etc, not mine. The only info that was mine was my cc#, cvc# and expiration date. Whatever info that is recorded for that transaction, they gave me. The purchase was for “Description 4,000 Credits in the NoMoreHits.com browser starter exchange program. 4,000 guaranteed visitors to your web site”. To me this is a big piece to the puzzle. Just hope someone can help me put it together. Wish I knew how to go about catching this person. Called the 3 credit bureaus and put a fraud alert on my account for 90 days and asked for copies of my credit reports. So far I have gotten 2 of 3 back and all is fine there. Called the police and made a report with them. They will be investigating also. Not sure what will come of it, but you never know. They gave me a website to go to for more info (http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/reporting.htm). Filed a claim with the FBI online. They will probably be contacting me at some point for that email. Contacted the FTC to report the fraud.Well I think that is just about it. Not sure what happens next.
Well, I never did the iPod thing. I already own two, and I have a popup blocker, and don’t receive those either, but after doing research on the “net”, the iPod thing is valid for those who have had the various problems listed here.
And guess what? Trilegiant OWNS Experian, and FreeCreditReport.com, and Avis, and ConsumerInfo.com, and IPlace.com– and the service that markets “Free Trial Offers” or “offers” with various vendors…. I truly believe that my problems occurred when I ordered my credit report in December, 2004 via FreeCreditReport.com.
I have a new debit card– got a week after I cancelled the original one. None of the other charges have showed up, and I hope they won’t. I put a “Fraud Alert” on my credit report for 90 days just in case…
So far so good! If anything changes, or if I find out more and/or new info, I’ll post!
AB-
you don’t have to sign up for the free ipod thing…the thief signs up(to netflip etc) and then has to get x number of people (us- through our stolen information) to sign up to services. Hence, they make x number of fake accounts from our info and sign us up for the services and the thief gets credit for the referral. Yes, it would be legitmate if if we had actually signed up. It’s true netflip isn’t to blame…although they could check into referrals more thouroughly. The person to blame is whoever received the free product from all of our referalls and chances are that is the person(s) who stole our information.
FYI-
netflip wrote me back and gave me a number to call to speak with the management
1-877-447-3547
I am going to try it later
ok, that number is the same BS phoneline using a different number that i tried before…don’t waste your time
Well, thank you everyone for tall the great info. My fiance recently got charged all this junk, same as everyone else, (She emailed you a few days ago, Colleen) but here’s the confusing part. She has a Visa which is billed to a house in Japan (she’s a student here, in the U.S.). Her mother quickly called the company and changed the number. Now, one month later, her Mastercard BANK card has been charged! Neither of us had any idea that these were subscription charges and needed to be cancelled by each company untill visiting this site. She just got a card in the mail from Travel Advantage (or a similair name) and they were VERY unwilling to cancel her order. After she yelled at them for 10 minutes they gave in. Now I will be doing this cancelling in the future and hopefully this will be resolved. But I can’t figure out this deal with the charges to two different cards.
And another thing, I have no doubt it was the free ipod scam that people are talking about. But everybody wonders where the perptrator got our information from and, as much as I hate to say it, the only thing any of us have in common (as far as I can tell) is that we shopped at Amazon.com.
Thanks again for the info.
Update, I was wrong, there are a few differences between her Visa and Bank card. One or two $1 charges were a little different. I have all the info for both these cards and will cancel everything tomorrow. I still have no idea why this happed with both cards (she doesn’t use her bank card online).
Update #2:
I just finished with all the companies and everything seems to be taken care of. But there’s more strangeness: The Visa and Mastercard were both registered a month apart! And what’s wierder, my fiance never used her Mastercard online! Everything’s dropped, and all of her cards are changed, so hopefully this is over with. Everything was registered under the same two emails. Did this happen to anyone else? I’m worried how the same person got ahold of her information twice. If that’s the case, can they do it again? Keep checking your account statements, guys.
I just got nailed with a bunch of these charges, too. I have yet to call anyone yet, but OH IT IS COMING!!! I have a question, though, on some some of the calls where they say you may have clicked on a pop-up. Just because you click on one, how can your credit card info suddenly fly to them like magic. I’m not talking about the one’s that pop-up when you check out for an item, just other pop-ups that this companies are claiming is the case. I mean, how is that even a logically conceivable agruement if you don’t enter your info and agree to any terms?
As for why we are getting charged, I think that maybe we are looking to hard at this. If a company has our info, why not just charge us for it? Not everyone who gets charged will call and cancel, or some by the time they do will suffer some monetary loss.
Who needs someone entering sweepstakes for free stuff? I mean it takes 5 on the average free item, right? The number of things I’ve been charged for is not a multiple of 5, and is greater than five. Sure it’s unethical, but like it say, until proven guilty… All they have to do is have a fall back plan after they leech the unawares, and I’m sure some profit will be made.
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Just for added info., the card that got hit has never been on the internet for anything by my own doing. I phrase it that way because I have a travel agent that takes care of certain payments for me. While I trust the agency and the agent themself, who knows what info is given to who. I can only assume it would be either this, or someone sharing info. Dumpster diving would only work if it was my bank, as everywhere that I have thus used my card only lists the last four digits, and I completely shred or keep hidden in my residence the account info. So take your pick of the two, sharing info between “none sharing” businesses or this one occasion of info going over too many hands to keep it secured(only used this card once with the travel agent).
By the way, it is a credit card with Bank of America (Texas)
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Sorry I’m throwing so much out at once, but I’m a college student on spring break, stuck at home sick, and if you tick off a college student with some time on their hands, this is what you get since everyone seems to love giving us the shaft.
Anyways, in looking into TLG, I found that they do indeed run the privacyguard used by bank of america (and for others of you, I checked, and most major banks use them now: Wells Fargo, Bankone, Usbank, etc.). As if that wasn’t bad enough, all of the junk offers you get with your statement in the mail and everywhere else from your bank/credit card company about being a loyal customer, well,…TLG does most of those.
Did you wonder how big TLG was? AOL is a tip of the iceberg. Besides all of the little minor things we have been charged with, AOL is officially known as AOL/Time Warner[conglomerate] (yes, that is the huge magazine, movie, HBO company), Sears, Macy’s, and a huge host of other. FYI, Time Warner is indeed a business partner of, that’s right, Blockbuster Inc. (Time Warner is actually one of the two largest share-holders of blockbuster.).
I’m just throwing this out there for you guys because I just believe this to be more along the lines of unethical trade practices, and not the ipod offer. Don’t discount your theory, yet though, as anything could still be a possibility. Unfortunately, if I’m right, it is going to take a massive amount of complaints against the company (or at the very least, the right person complaining-why can’t this happen to Donald Trump?!)
The best thing I’ve found so far is to send an email to the law firm currently investigating trilegiant, which is the same web address that Doug listed before, but here it is again.
http://www.girardgibbs.com/trilegiant.html
Thanks to all of you who created this page and continually post with updates!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
As far as multiples of five, you can only do one referal for each person on the ipod so you need five people(they might do a couple at each site to be redundant)…which if you worked at equifax, or somewhere else, wouldn’t be too hard to steal. I understand sharing information but whoever would share credit card numbers is looking for a large law suit. Maybe all of those companies would give them enough kickbacks to be worth it? how could they possibly defend sharing your account #’s..to what logical end would it serve? And that would require some person whose job is to make fraudlent email account..its possible? but if they deal with every bank, then you have no where to go anyway? I guess I am still leaning towards someone who is bored taking the 30 minutes to fill out the forms for x number of people
I just got my Experian credit report and one of the companies that “looked at” my info in the last year or two was Choicepoint, which has been in the news lately for having been hacked and lost a bunch of peoples’ info. It’s interesting that two new members here report charges on a card that has never been used on the Internet; that implies somebody like Experian (Choicepoint, I think, only had SSNs, not CC numbers) is the source of our leak, since the credit bureaus have ALL that info on everybody.
Seems to me that somebody had access to all this info, thought it was too risky to actually use the card numbers to buy stuff directly, and is using them instead to get free merchandise. Not only iPods and Mac minis but all sorts of stuff is available this way. Maybe we should check eBay to see if anyone is selling lots of iPods and Minis…
Putting a Fraud Alert on your credit reports is a good thing to do, though I read an article recently that said a lot of creditors don’t pay attention to the fraud alerts, sadly. Read it and weep: http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/FinancialPrivacy/P48173.asp
Sherri, thanks for the tip about filing with the FBI online. Now I bet *they* could get somebody at Metareward to answer the phone!
If we could just get someone to care enough from law enforcement to trace back who got the rewards through netflip/metareward. It looks like the thief clearly understands the apathy and/or overworked nature of law enforcement.
I tried in Dallas but the cyber crime detective said it was up to compass bank to pursue.
These are the addresses listed in reference USA. If anyone somewhere else has cooperative law enforcement maybe they could contact the Menlo Park or San Carlos department.
NETFLIP 125 CONSTITUTION DR MENLO PARK, CA 94025
NETFLIP 999 SKYWAY SAN CARLOS, CA 94070
I just found a charge on my account yesterday from greatfun and I called them. Apparently, what had happened to me, was I had purchased an item from a website called buy.com and there was supposedly a popup asking if I would like 2 months of free membership with them, but the thing is that I have popup blocking so I never saw the popup. When I spoke to the woman at greatfun, I told her simply that I found an unauthorized charge to my bank account that I did not make, that I have no idea who or what greatfun is and I would like my money back immediately. We will see if the charge is reversed or there will be hell to pay. What a scam.
I wish I had seen this yesterday! I just signed up with GeatFun. Guess what…. I cannot locate their site in order to take advantage of my discounts! There was no website listed on their e-mails. I was originally routed through another advertiser to a page that didn’t have a link their website. What’s going on here?
I just noticed that one of the services that you can get referall points through netflip is “Free Credit Report”
I was worried too, but I actually got my Free Ipod after alot of effort and persistence from Metareward. I never spoke to anyone, it was all done via email.
In my above message I mentioned that Columbia House sent me DVD’s and charged my credit card. Called them again the other day before I returned the DVD’s because the charge never did show up and found out that the credit card used was not mine. They said that this is going to the fraud department for review.
I emailed the company in the Netherlands again that charged me 40 bucks for some type of net services to see if I can get my money back and if they had any info on the person who’s login id I have. They told me that this person is in their database, but no other info was in his/her profile and cancelled his/her account with them. They also told me that it looks like this person has been using other credit cards fraudulently to purchase more credits. They said they have a service that handles the transactions and that they just open the accounts. Hmm what’s up with that?
I also have a yahoo email account which I pay for for extra storage. I used my credit card to pay for the services. This email account I don’t use my real name and a few weeks before all this happened I started receiving spam emails with my full real name at that account. Not sure if it is related.
Sure hope we all can put things together and figure out what is going on here!!!!
Sherri
I’ll add myself to the growing list here. I had 5 $1.00 charges from TLG under their various business names, Blockbuster for $10.71, and Star Club Rewards for $9.95 Blockbuster on Feb 24th and TLG all on Feb 25th.
When I called Citibank, they told me that TLG had additional charges of $8.99 (2) and $9.99 (2) and there was a charge for Star Club Rewards for $9.95.
We closed that account.
Then I found Matt’s Blog and discovered this happening to all of you too. When I went to Star Club Rewards’ Web site, I noticed logos for Apple Computer and Buy.com. Both companies had my credit card info.
I use pop-up blocking on my Web browsers, so the lame excuse of “You must have clicked on a pop-up.” doesn’t fly with me. Also, you would have to proactively fill out a form with required info to make this anywhere near “legit.” They couldn’t just start charging your credit card passively for an mistaken click on an ad.
So how many of you do business with Apple Computer?
How about Buy.com?
Maybe all this is coming from one source. I rarely buy stuff from Apple, but visit and buy from Buy.com quite frequently.
I think the pop-up blocker excuse is just a convenient coached response to try to get the call resolved(although it may have happened to someone, somewhere, but this doesn’t seem to connect with the central theme of what is happening to people who have posted here especially because some of us would have had to missed multiple pop-ups).
I’m not sure if we will ever know if this was an individual or a group realted to a company unless it becomes very widespread.
I had used the card that got stolen at Apple & Buy.com, as well as other ‘big name’ vendors like amazon, bestbuy.com, etc.
FYI – I have now received “my” magazine subscriptions of Seventeen, Teen People and Skateboarding magazine. Golly. I’m SO glad I’m not a teenager. 🙂
I had used the card at several sites, several large vendors..not buy.com, yes to amazon and apple…are we all apple users?
are we all apple users?
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That’s what I’m trying to determine. 🙂
Also, several days ago, I received the Teen mag and then Seventeen. No teenagers in this household… No billing from TWX on my previous account.
I’m beginning to wonder if something isn’t just “whacked out.”
I am certainly a mac user, in fact I was a mac support tech for years until I became a Unix Sysadmin. I use a mac at work and at home and run the local Mac user group. So yes, I am certainly a mac user and Apple had that credit card for my iTunes account and other things too. For the record I also bought mac stuff from Small Dog Electronics, though I would be shocked if they were the source of this leak of information.
When I cancelled those magazines they said I might get a few issues anyways. Joy. 🙂
As for being whacked out… .we live in interesting times 🙂
It really only takes one bad seed that has access. I wouldn’t blame apple anymore than I would blame a restaurant if a waiter stole my information, but it would be strange if all of us were apple users, it could be coincidental and still another site but that woud be a strange coincidence…