I recently registered with an identity theft company to provide me with monthly credit report updates and insurance protection in the event my identity is stolen. The name of the company is Privacy Matters. They advertised agressively on local radio. Their website is www.privacymattersidentity.com. I paid my first monthly fee in September for $19.95 using my credit card. They sent me an e-mail update and a request to confirm by membership in October. I didn't notice but in October I got two charges to my credit card for $19.95... One at the beginning of the month one toward the end... One from privacymattersidentity.com another from privacymatters123.com. I didn't notice and paid the bill. The third month I got another confirmation which I responded to, and that month I get three charges to my credit card, the third from protectionplus123.com. When I called to cancel the contract, while I called three different toll free telephone numbers, I actually was connected to three very similar automated answering systems. I spoke to a customer service person the first time named Anna. I spoke to the exacr same customer service person the seond time only her name was Diedra (very distinct accent and she mispronounced my name exactly the same way both times). All three companies have mailing addresses CT. The e-mail cancellation confirmations were from three separate companies but were in the exact same form e-mail message format.
This is obviously at a minimum, a scam to double bill people for the same service, and worse a scam to capture people identiy information.
I have filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Office of Consumer Affairs.
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