On December 14 we charged a rental car on our credit card through my husband's corporate benefits program at his place of employment, and apparently Hotwire.com. Is the vendor that my husband's employer uses.
Today I checked our credit card statement online, and noticed that today, February 28, TLG/GreatFun had charged $9.98 to our credit card. We obviously never authorized this charge.
I called TLG at their toll free number, and if you keep pressing a 0 while they keep trying to give you their recorded spiel, it will eventually put you through to a live customer service rep.
I spoke with "Iddi" at TLG. He told me that when we used Hotwire, we were offered a $20 discount for something at the end of the sale, and that automatically signed us up for the TLG "service".
I told "Iddi" very emphatically that we never authorized our credit card to be charged by either TLG or any of their myriad companies, and demanded that the charge be immediately removed from our credit card. I was not calm. I have worked in the billing disputes department of a major credit card company and know that once these scam companies get ahold of your credit card number the charges just keep on coming.
"Iddi" hung up on me the first time. I called back, and again pressed 0 until I got a customer service rep on the phone again, coincidentally it was the same person, "Iddi" or perhaps that is the alias they are all assigned to use this evening.
I again demanded that the charge be removed from my credit card pursuant to Federal Regulation E. I told him that I was recording this telephone call, and that tomorrow I will be taking this to the Delaware State Attorney General's Office and will file a complaint. Iddi in the end did apologize and state that he was removing the charge from our credit card, he gave a cancellation number of HG864340228. I reminded him once again that I was recording this call and he promised that the charge would be reversed.
Knowing from my past work experience in the billing disputes department of a credit card company, I then called our credit card company and filled out a dispute form regarding this charge. After thinking it over for about 15 minutes or so, I called the credit card company back and requested that the credit card be cancelled. It will be more difficult to TLG or one of their subsidiaries to run any more charges through on a new card, and easier for us to keep track of any new charges.
I then called Hotwire to express my displeasure with their participation in this scam. The customer service rep argued with me, telling me that we had checked off a box at the end of our online transaction, agreeing to purchase the TLG service. I told her emphatically that we did not agree to purchase anything other than our ticket, and basically she told me it was too bad, the transaction could not be completed unless we had checked it off. Does this mean then that if you purchase anything through Hotwire you are automatically signed up for TLG? My husband booked this through his computer at work, and all pop-ups are blocked, he would not have been permitted to check off anything other than purchasing the ticket. The woman's attitude was just that it was too bad. She stated in a totally disinterested voice that they were not connected with TLG and that they did not sell our credit card number, that we purchased the service. I asked to speak to her manager.
I spoke with Bill, the manager at Hotwire, and explained the situation to him again. He repeated what the customer service rep said, and basically said it was our problem. I told him that my husband was filing a complaint with the corporate office of his company regarding Hotwire, and he said he could not care less what my husband did, it was our problem, and the call terminated.
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