On the 10th of this month I fell prey to an offer for a "free" credit report from PrivacyMatters, offered to me via email solicitation. I accessed the report after having filled out my credit card/bank account information, which was "required in order to access my credit report". A $1.00 processing fee was charged, and agreed to, and lo and behold, there was my report.
Seemed great, until yesterday when I noted that my account balance was lower than it should have been. This morning I checked the statement online to see that there were two charges from "AP9*PRIVACYMATTERS 800 -"; the first $1.00 charge and the new charge of $14.95 on the 17th. I looked up the company name and found out what it was — and that others had complained — and called their 800 number.
I didn't auto-cancel, instead, I went straight to a service rep who I told in no uncertain terms that I would not pay the $14.95. She stammered a little bit about how the charge is applied after seven days if your account is not cancelled in this time frame. When I told her that I'd be willing to pay the charge if she could show me precisely where it says this on the credit report offer, she paused, put me on hold, and came back saying she would cancel the account. When I stopped her mid-hangup speech and asked for clarification she very rudely said "YES, you will get your money back, GOODBYE."
FYI: check out the BBB report on the company, which is actually under the title "Vertrue" and has many, many other names (looking up "Privacy Matters" gives you this link):
http://www.heartlandbbb.org/commonreport.html? Bid=107000028
Good luck. I'm precluding myself from business with any of their groups.
Layla
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
U.S.A.
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