Last night, I was viewing my February credit card statement and found some unusual charges. The first was for a service called AP9 Shopping Essentials and the charge was for $12.95. The other charge was for a company called Business Max and the charge was also for $12.95. Since I did not recognize these businesses, I checked my January statement and sure enough those same 2 charges appeared.
As it turns out, after making a printing purchase with Vista Print in October, these companies started charging my credit card, without my permission, for services I never asked for. I did however view a $10.00 rebate certificate from Vista Print at the time of my order, but shut it down after viewing.
Additionally, these are not separate companies, but rather departments within a single company known as Vertrue Inc.
According the AP9BusinessMax representative, by simply viewing the form and not clearing out any fields before shutting down my browser, I was still signed up for a 30 day trial membership. After 30 days I would be billed for the service (that I didn't know about).
Supposedly, my membership information was emailed to me. When I told the representative I block all unsolicited email, he basically told me that is wasn't his problem. The company's policy supposedly states that they can only refund money for the previous 2 months, however, this representative, (Stephenie, rep# 7442) only gave the refund for the single previous month.
This company is some how connected with Vista Print so your best bet is not to do business with Vista Print for any reason. Buyer Beware!
And after further research on the computer, I found that there are pending lawsuits against this company. It operates in the US and Canada and goes by a variety of names (which is each of its departments).
Furthermore, the main company, Vertrue Inc., has changed it's name 3 times since 1989. According to a Yahoo Finance Article, Vertrue was co-founded by Gary A. Johnson. The company was incorporated as Cardmember Publishing Corporation in 1989 and changed its name to MemberWorks Incorporated in 1996. Further, it changed its name to Vertrue Incorporated in 2004. Vertrue is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut. The Article further states that The company's clients include banks and other financial institutions, e-commerce companies, direct response television companies, catalog companies, retailers, and other organizations. So be careful you could be scammed through some other media service & not even know it.
On a last note, after my Vista Print order, I started receiving a lot more junk mail & found a higher lever of Spyware on my machine. I have a strong hunch that Vista Print sells a lot of its customer information to more than one vendor.
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