Today I discovered an unknown creditcard charge on my online statement dated 12-13-02 that had a description of "MWI*SIMPLE ESCAPES2 (Services and Merchandise)" for $149.95. Having never heard of this company I immediately wondered what this charge was since I had not used my card recently.
After doing a quick Google search for the company the first thing that came up was a report by someone saying that this company did the exact same thing to them for an amount of $139.95. A bit more searching, by including the keyword 'fraud', brought me here to see even more accounts regarding this 'business'.
After calling my bank to report this, they said they needed to get someone from MWI on the line with us so we could dispute it. One of their reps came on and I told him I had been charged by his company and had no idea who or what it was for. He verified that I had indeed been charged.
When I asked who the company was and what they were charging me for he went into a spiel about them being some sort of 'buyers club', providing discounts, rebates and gift certificates to places like K-Mart, Home Depot and Blockbuster. I cut him off and said I had never joined any such club in my life, and how did they get my name? He came back with that they had taken over for some business called 'VisionX' last month and the charge was related to them. Having never heard of this place either I again asked what the charge was specifically for. He started repeating what MWI was and about it being a buyer's club and did not answer my question.
I told him I wanted my credit card refunded and he said it would be by my next statement. Since we all know they can do this immediately I said no that wouldn't do, I wanted it done in the next 24 hours. He said they would do their best to do it within the next 3 days. When I mentioned to him that I was at that moment looking here at several cases of apparent fraud and illegal card charges by his company to other people like myself he said he didn't know anything about this and tried to very quickly end the conversation. The bank rep, who had been listening in to all this, managed to get his ID# before he quickly hung up.
The transaction has been put on hold by my bank, meaning I will not be liable for it. I offered to tell the bank rep about the reports I was seeing here but she said they didn't keep records like this of questionable companies and only worked on a case-by-case basis. She did say, however, that others had reported similar unknown charges, and also that she knew of many satisfied customers relating to this company as well.
I also asked her to look into my past statements and see if any other charges had been made by either MWI or VisionX. She found one from last Decemeber, also to MWI, for $139.95, which I must have missed or thought was for something else. I asked if it was too late to dispute that one and she said she could send me some forms to fill out and that I could possibly get a refund for that as well.
To sum up, I have never joined or belonged to any kind of buyer's club or anything even remotely resembling what MWI purports to be. I have no idea where they got my name, much less my credit card number. I followed a few links here and see that MWI appears under various names: MWI Essentials, MWI Connections, MWI Galleria, to name a few. I don't know if they are all the same company but I suggest everyone be leery of any charges apearing under the name MWI.
It also seems a lawsuit has been filed in California against MWI Connections & MemberWorks for credit card fraud.
Hopefully, someone will pay for all this, and I don't just mean getting my money back.
Randy
Lynwood, Illinois
U.S.A.
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