I also received a charge of $299.00 to my checking account. This happened to us once before about 4 years ago, so don't think it can never happen to you. We never recovered our money, nor our innocence. Its outright theft, but I learned from the experience.
I look at our account online on a daily basis. The money was taken from our account on the 16th of November and I reported to my credit union on the 18 th. We can see our checks online, and I knew this was not like our usual printed checks. Our credit union immediately faxed me an affadavit of unauthorized withdrawal, I signed it and sent it back. I was told that the money would be returned to my account sometime next week.
The nest thing I did was to go online with the company name I saw printed on the check. Sure enough, there it was with a story about fraudulent charges. All of the advice was right on target. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way 4 years ago. To make a long story short, we did not know about the 60 day limit.
We found it and reported it, however it was on the 63rd day.
We phoned, we wrote, however we received no response or were left on hold for long periods of time. We were sick about it, we resported it to several agencies and state attorney generals, but our money was gone. It was a shock because, as I said, we considered it outright theft. It was a lesson we learned the hard way.
One thing my husband and I believe in is warning others. They count on people not checking their accounts frequently, and that generally, the public do not believe they can do this and get away with it. We are suspicious of anything that says "allow 4 to 6 weeks for delivery. That may or may not be a the necessary time needed for delivery. We insist that it be no more than 4 weeks or we will no accept delivery. Because we were burned, we are suspicious. Does this 4-6 weeks help use up the 60 days? In our case, it did.
It is also important to realize that in this last case, we knew absolutely nothing. We ordered nothing, we had not talked to anyone, the money was just drafted. The only thing we could come up with, was we had received a mailing about 3 to 4 weeks ago about a credit card and calling a number to "activate" the card. I threw it straight into the trash as we do any mailings of that nature. As I was going over internet information about scams, I recognized the material of this company as those I received and threw away.
Can it be true? Yes public, it is. They can steal from you, and if you wait too long, they can get away with it. We were lucky this time. We were made very aware the first time we went through this. They count on your shock and disbelief, they count on your procrastination about dealing with it because you just can't believe it. They count on you to wait, to accept excuses, to tell you they will take care of it. Realize that if you do not check your account carefully and often, they can actually get away with it. We talked to no one. I want you to understand that. We never gave them any "tool" to use to take our money. They just took it. Beware! This time we were educated and they didn't get away with it. Unfortunately, they count on those who don't know how to fight back and those who don't even know its being done to them.
Hope this helps someone avoid these scams, and most definitely Helen of Trade.
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