I always thought that I was smarter than the average bear. I found out this morning that I am VERY wrong.
I was contacted by a guy from the Biltmore Who's Who in Hollywood, FL. He pulled my phone number and e-mail address off my company's website. My company writes custom desktop, mobile, and web applications. I have many certificates, licenses, and credentials, so I was pleased that he was able to name almost all of them. I figured this guy had done his homework.
With my ego properly stoked, he went into the sales pitch. It was very smooth, and I didn't even notice the transition from talking about me, to talking about my credit card. I actually had to put the guy on hold so that I could call one of my other employees who had the company credit card out of town. I signed-up for the Platinum membership.
However, upon discussing this decision with someone else and doing internet research, I called Who's Who back THE SAME DAY and told them that I wanted to cancel. They were very rude and gave me a bunch of hassle, but in the end said that they were removing me from the registry, and that I would not be able to network with other professionals in my field ever again. I informed them that I had been doing just fine before they came along, and I think I'll continue to be okay.
I called my bank and informed them of the situation. They put a flag on the account to decline charges. It's a good thing they did. Who's Who tried TWICE to charge the card.
Then, this morning, I receive an automatically generated e-mail from my bank that said a charge of $818.95 was posted to my account by... You guesed it... Biltmore Who's Who in Hollywood, FL.
I called the bank, and they said that the merchant had used a technique called a "Force Transaction" that routes around the usual approval process, and "forces" the charge to go through.
So, I am now in the process of disputing a $818.95 claim against these people. I called the police department in Hollywood, FL (they were very helpful), and the officer proceeded to inform me that the address listed on the website was actually a branch of Bank of America (which is ironic because that's my bank!), and that they had no record of this company.
The police report has been filed, the paperwork is underway for the credit card dispute, and my head is still spinning that a transaction can be FORCED to go through even though I told (1) the company not to make the charge and (2) my BANK not to clear the charge.
Live and learn, I guess...
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