Of course canceling a credit card makes a difference.
Receiving a rebuttal from a Citibank employee that canceling the credit card would not make a difference has prompted not only a response to that rebuttal, but also this update which I address to anyone suffering from the business practices of MWI Connections aka Essentials aka many other aliases.in my conversations with Citibank, they were indeed interested in keeping me as a credit card customer, despite what this rebuttal Citibank employee has said. I got the attention I wanted and the help I needed by being very clear I did not want to keep the card if I could not get a refund and if this company continued to charge my card fraudulently.
Citibank's position, through this particular employee who responded, is not an appropriate position to take with a customer. Banks need to protect the personal information of their credit card customers, not openly and even wantonly subject them to being fair game for abusive companies like MWI. Affiliates and vendors of banks at the very least should undergo meeting a strict criteria before a bank accepts them as such. That criteria needs to be at minimum absolutely excluding any company that has a reputation for frauding customers.
Query to Citibank and other banks whose credit card services are affiliated with MWI Memberworks: Would you hire a known thief to be a bank teller? Why affiliate with a company who can fraud your customers? Doesn't Citibank, or any bank, do background checks on vendors and affiliates? Or do they only do that for their hourly employees? Trying to blame the customer for being forgetful or too stupid to read the fine print is not an acceptable response to these numerous, numerous nationwide complaints about this company.
Being big doesn't make you infallible. Citibank is big, no doubt about it, as are many of the other companies MWI Memberworks has duped into getting a vendor/affiliate agreement, but, face it, Citibank made a mistake. A big mistake for a big company. They hooked up with MWI. Just like Sears did, who wound up paying millions for their stupidity in having MWI as an affiliate. Where was Citibank's legal department in researching MWI before agreeing to a vendor partnership?
I have been in the legal field many years and have seen a lot of dumb blunders made by good businesses, including very big good businesses. This one is particularly dumb. And in my younger years I worked in advertising and marketing and I know all too well the mechanisms and manipulations by which many companies, big or small, do their best to get customers' money, most of which involve getting the customer to believe they need something they really don't for reasons they don't have, using misleading language in printed material, bullying telemarketing techniques, intimidation (i.E., we are big and you are no one; we will get our way because we are big and your little voice won't affect us in the slightest), outright lies about the product or service, etc., etc., etc.
Sadly, these companies are counting on people being stupid. Abraham Lincoln once said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." This is the reality of consumerism in America. But, happily, these fraudulent approaches eventually get found out because the greed that provides the motivation keeps growing until it becomes too evident sort of like stealing in broad daylight because you are too cocky to believe you will get caught, and then you do get caught.
Remember that it's the tax dollars of each American that is paying for each of the State Attorney General's class action lawsuits against companies like MWI, and against MWI's partners like Citibank or Sears, etc. It's time for banks and their credit card services to be consumer advocates, customer advocates; the money in the bank is the customer's money. The banks live off the money of the customer. If everyone stashed their money in a mattress, banks would not exist. Banks were created, in part, to PROTECT people's money from thieves.
So do your job, Bank. Protect our money. Don't give out our personal information. Assume we don't want others to have that information, rather than assuming we do want others to have that information. I shouldn't have to ask you to take my name off of a shared information list. My name shouldn't be on it to begin with; you ask me first. And research your vendors and affiliates. Don't get involved with crooked businesses who can take my money. Take responsibility for your mistakes. Don't assume I was dumb and your affiliate was right. Don't assume I was dumb because you are a big company, a big financial institution aka bank. Maybe you were dumb. This time you were.
Wake up, Bank. Participate in fighting fraud within your ranks. Otherwise you become just as much a victim as the customer.
Of course canceling a credit card will make a difference. How wrong you are to say it will not! It makes a difference even as a single vote in a Presidential election makes a difference. Simple cancellations, like single votes, can add up. They do, and they will.
And, by the way, the American public only puts up with being tricked for so long. They do get mad. And they do take action. Class action lawsuits. Buyer, beware, yes; but, also, Businesses, beware.
Note to consumers affected by this bad business: Please see my rebuttal response to the Citibank employee which should be online in 72 hours.insist that your credit card company help you to get your refund from MWI. Write your state Attorney General with your complaint about what this MWI Memberworks aka many aliases did to you. If there is a current class action lawsuit in your state against this company, you may be entitled to double the refund.
Also, incidentally, I am an American citizen and California resident who happens to be living in Brazil at the moment. I don't think MWI has taken its fraudulent business practices outside of the States... Yet.
Nancy
Sao Paulo
Brazil
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