Luckily for me this didn't go on for months and months, but still, money that is being taken out of my account without my approval is not a good thing.
For any of us doing business on the internet and/or surfing different sites for various things, I learned the hard way that simply pressing "ok" for a free something or other can mean that you are giving your approval for alot of other things that you don't want or need.
Back in October of '07 I visited a website for one thing and clicked the "ok" button for something that I did indeed want. What I didn't want was to end up having $9.95 taken out of my account 4 months in a row and I couldn't figure out why because on my statement it said 'SSC Rebill SSC REBILL". Then an Express Gold card was sent to me and the letter clearly stated that you had to "activate" the card in order to use the card. My experience in the past with cards such as this is you can't use the card until you activate it, therefore you aren't charged anything until you have activated it as well. I didn't want the card to begin with so I never activated the card and tossed it aside in a box of junk that I just happened to be going through today to throw out and I came across it.
Nov. And Dec rolled by and still the fee of $9.95 was there. The only difference was in Dec. My bank statement said "Cubis Financial Internet", which was my biggest clue to finding out what this charge was and why because the SSC Rebill had no phone number linked to it. So I called my bank. The customer rep that I spoke with gave me the phone number for Cubis Financial Internet and suggested that I start with them since it was a verified number for a $9.95 charge and see if I could have that charge refunded and see if they were affiliated with the other two charges of the same amount. I did just that.
When I called Cubis Financial Internet, they referred me to Customer Service (that's the number that's listed in this report). When I spoke to a woman in Customer Service, she explained to me that the card was sent to me automatically because I had clicked "ok".. Hmmmm..
Then she went on to say that the card had a 30 day trial period on it before the monthly fee started. I didn't know that and as I read the letter again, it doesn't state that at all. So once the 30 day trial was over at the end of October, my account was charged $9.95 for a card that #1) I had not activated, and #2) didn't want in the first place. I explained this to her and mentioned that I had been speaking to my bank about this. She assured me that she was canceling the card, (LOL. How can you cancel something that was never activated?) and that I would be refunded for the past 3 months of $9.95 which we will wait and see.
My problem with sites that have multiple advertisers on them is that you don't know what you are saying okay to. If I'm clicking on "OK" for one thing and one thing only, I'm expecting just that one thing and not something in addition to without my knowledge.
So, first, sites like that get you by sending you something you don't want, and by not stating in the letter that you have 30 days to try this card and then a fee will be charged to your account; many people, like myself, will simply disregard the letter and/or even just throw it out since most credit cards/debit cards/store cards that are offered in the mail, you MUST activate the card before using it and/or being charged a fee for it.
And second, you will have this monthly charge being taken out and you won't know what it's for because the only info that shows up on your bank statement will be SSC ReBill, (and there is no phone number) unless you get lucky like I did and it says Cubis Financial Internet, because then there is a phone number for that.
What probably was fortunate for me is that I had that other phone number to call and was then directed to Customer Service of that company where I could get to the bottom of it. Without that, I would have had to go through the lengthy process of filing paperwork with my bank to dispute the charges.
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