On 1/23/04 my wife and I saw a charge to our Visa card for $169.95 that we could not identify on our online account statement. It was listed as coming from "MWI*SIMPLE ESCAPES2 877-271-4660 CT." Neither of us had ordered anything of such value from such a company.
A call to the number provided got us an initial response that we had indeed agreed to the charge and had joined their "service." When my wife promptly replied angrily that we had done no such thing, the customer service rep said the money would be refunded and the "membership" cancelled. But still we were quite suspicious.
A little checking on the web led us to all SORTS information. The summary is that this is one of a number of subsidiaries of MemberWorks, Inc., a company having a number of subsidiaries apparently infamous for charging peoples' accounts without proper authorization. Apparently they are STILL up to their dirty tricks, only now they're charging more money... No doubt to make up for the fact that people are catching on to their scams!
Needless to say, we've contacted our bank to have the charge reversed. We've also lodged a complaint against MemberWorks with them, and asked that ANY charges from "MWI" in ANY form henceforth be refused.
Take PROMPT action if you see something like this show up on your credit card statement! If you wait too long, the fraud protection interval your issuing bank provides (They DO provide you with this, right? And if not, WHY not?) might expire, and you won't be able to get your money back so easily... Or possibly at all!
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