I was offered, threw one of many freakin' e-mails or pop-ups, to recieve a free Linen's N Things, which is a place I like. So I figured why not. I was not told during the proccess that my card would be charged. I was charged a dollar, and just like "free" credit reports, they charge your account a dollar to see if it is an actual active card that you put in. So I didn't think twice about it. But then I noticed about Thursday of last week, that my account was charged $14.95, that isn't something that you can go and buy and actually end up with tax being charged 14.95 so I sent a message to my bank. Then I notced the dollar charge to my account last night when I was going over my bank statement, ShoppingEssentals was on it and the name didn't sound familiar.
Mind you, around this same time I was trying to get my credit report from different sites so I thought the dollar charge was from one of them. Then my bank go back with me and gave me the number to call and told me that if I wanted to fight the charge I would have to come into a local branch. So, right now as I'm typing this report as I'm on lunch, a few minutes ago I went and did a google search for Shopping Essentials and I saw a lot of your links come up saying "rip off" and I laughed. At this same time as I was reading all this I was on the phone with Shopping Essentials. I got a hold of a customer support person and told them that I did not authorize them to use my card and I didn't go threw with the registry when I saw it required a card. She said I did then my responce was I was not notified of the $14.95 charge and I wanted to cancel it and a refund of the $14.95 to my account. I sat on hold for about two to five minutes then she came back on saying that my account had been cancelled and that I should recieve my refund in one to two buisness days.
But sense I read several articles about this, I figured I'd join in and talk about it myself as well. MY word of advice to people reading this, I am 19 years old. If you see or get an e-mail or pop-up saying "free".. Look for the fine print and if you go threw with putting in your name and address then it asks for a card, unless you really want it and it says what you're buying don't do it. Or if you're curious to see if it's laget, then open another browser page and go to my favorite site, google, and put in the company name and see if this site comes up.
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