I made an online purchase in November on the North Style (northstyle.com) web site of a 35$ Christmas gift; not an unusual way for me to shop. Today when checking my bank statements, I noticed a charge for $9.95 reflected as AP9*ShoppingEssentials 888-243-6180 on my credit card; a charge that I did not recognize. I immediately called the number and spoke to Dawn (ID #25956) who explained that in making my purchase, I selected to "purchase a membership" from AP9*Shopping Essentials; which I certainly had no intention of purchasing. I pulled my electronic receipt (a practice wherein I cut and paste from the final purchase confirmation page for reference) from North Style and found no information from AP9*Shopping Essentials.
I have not received any written confirmation, electronic confirmation or SPAM messages from this AP9*Shopping Essentials confirming any such membership purchase. Although Dawn was pleasant on the phone and agreed to credit the $9.95 back to my credit card, the fact that the charge was applied and not authorized, on top of the fact that AP9*ShoppingEssentials now have my credit card information on file was bothersome enough to prompt a mock purchase on North Style again to see how the information was actually captured. I actually contacted North Style and spoke to a supervisor named Pete (I was actually referred to Karen) to obtain info on their specific affiliation with AP9*.
I explained that the "offer" to purchase the membership is automatically selected and that the customer needs to deselect the option. Pete was very pleasant and offered to credit me back for the gift item that I actually did purchase from North Style (a considerate offer of which I refused), and he apologized for the inconvenience. Nevertheless, the warning needs to be spread about marketing or data collection agencies that obtain "memberships" in this way; DECEPTIVELY! In retracing my shopping steps, I have also found several spyware applications following the transaction that I can not positively link to the transaction. A record of the attempts show in the software I have downloaded (Lavasoft's Ad-aware SP Personal spyware detection program) to protect against this problem and suggest that others do the same. I intend to review the legalities of this practice, but in the mean time, have contacted my bank and cancelled the card and would also recommend that any customer experiencing the same may look into the possibility of cancelling their card as well.
Cathy
Bremerton, Washington
U.S.A.
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