I have occasion to use the services of Intelius to track down customers who choose to leave town rather than pay their bills. That service has worked fine for a year or so. The last time I paid for a reprt was May 27.
To my surprise I began getting charges for $19.95 on June 4 on the same credit card from a company called AP9 Valuemax. I thought that it was from an anti-virus software company at first and dismissed it. But today I while paying my credit card online, I noticed a July 6 charge in the amount of $19.95 from AP9 Valuemax again. I immediately called the telephone numer on thar charge lime item and I was informed that when I purchased the search report from Intelius that "I must have clicked on the Valemax banner" in order to be charged this 'membership' fee. I did no such thing.intelius shared my credit card information with Valuemax, without my authorization.
The customer service agent was pleasant and initiated a reversal of the July charge, but stated that they could not refund the June charge. I then took up the case with my credit card issuer to dispute the June charge.
In my professional opinion, a crime was commited here and I could only imagine that it is widespead. I googled 'AP9 Valuemax' to find this website and felt it important to share this case with as many unsuspecting internet shoppers as possible.
As a precaution, I generally get a "Shop-Safe" one-time use Visa number for internet purchases, but did not follow my own advice this time.
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