Was looking on the net for some hard-to-find hardware drivers... It's not uncommon to find driver sites that charge 4 or 5 bucks for a driver, and when I found a site that said they had what I wanted, I didn't hesitate to go after it.
On megadownloadpass.com, I gave them my email address and my credit card, and was ready to do the download, so I clicked on the link for the site that was displayed at the end of the transaction.
I was rewarded by a flood of what must have been 70 or 80 pages of erotic pictures and offers... They just kept coming in spite of everything I did, so I just turned off my pc.
When I got back on the net, I was furious, and by an intuitive leap I jumped over to my bank's web site, where I could see they had charged me not only $4.87 (billed to CHKCARDSUPPORTPOLIS. CO8666049 USDE), and right above it was a bill for $39.95, billed to CHKCARDWIREACCT.com 8776609 CYIL.
Back at my email account were two items, one from [email protected] which was the acknowledgement that I had a membership for megadownloadpass.com... Which is really a link that pushes you automatically to cybererotica.com.
In that first email was the somber notice: "Unless cancelled, your subscription will automatically rebill at $39.73 in 3 days for your convenience." I really would like to know why that would be convenient for me, but I guess that's beside the point.
The second email was a notice that I now had a membership in CyberErotica.com. It said, among other things:
Thank you for choosing Cybererotica.
Please note that any authorizations, or charges, will show up discreetly on your statement as: "WIREACCT.com".
Your membership details are as follows:
- 2 Day Free Trial membership to Cybererotica.
- A Free Lifetime membership to FreeLifetimeBonusPass.com.
And then it showed the userid and password I had declared for the driver download site... Made it obvious the two sites were part of this whole ruse.
Then the email said: "For trial information, membership cancellation, technical support and customer service:
Email: [email protected].
Phone: 877-660-9760"
NO response from the email address overnight, a phone number that just went around in circles, so I went that morning (the morning of Day 2) to my local bank and shut down the card, reporting it stolen.
I called the banks central support number on their advice, and reported the incident as a "Regulation E Violation", which makes me not liable for the billing and reverses the billing against my account.
Later that morning, the billings disappeared from my account. So... All is well, but I do wonder what would have happened if I had been too busy to chase it for a few days.
My advice would be to be very careful on the internet (yes, I think I learned my lesson), and don't waste time using your bank as a resource to fight the predators who see us simply as sheep ready for a sheering.
0 comments