I signed up for Classmates.com last week. I've had the free membership for a few years and had received some messages from some people I went to high school with, but of course, with the free membership, you have access to very little info. They had cut their usual 39.95 price down to 19.95, so I thought it might be worth it.
They billed my Visa debit card 19.95, as per the ad.
About a week later I saw another charge of 19.95 posted on my checking account. After a little research I found that this wasn't Classmates, but a company called Privacymatters123.com. I plugged their name into Google and found that they are a credit monitoring service that charges 19.95 per month to "monitor" my credit, whatever that means.
I have never pulled a credit report from the internet, never signed up for any service.
When I called Privacymatters123.com they said that their service was 19.95 per month and that I signed up for it on Classmates.com when I took a "Credit Survey" on the site. Bullsh_t... I never take "surveys" on the internet... Never have, never will. I very rarely even get any spam. I'm real careful on the internet, mainly because of predators like this.
A little more investigation told me that this is a regular practice for Classmates and this company. It appears that Classmates.com sells your info to Privacymatters123.com. If I were not careful about monitoring my checking account, this practice would have continued month after month, a cost of $240 per year.
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