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GameStop, Other Retailers Subpoenaed Over Credit Card Information Sharing
New York State's Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, has subpoenaed a number of online retailers, including GameStop, Barnes & Noble, Ticketmaster and Staples, over the way they pass information to marketing firms while processing transactions. MSNBC explains the scenario thus: "You're on the site of a well-known retailer and you make a purchase. As soon as you complete the transaction a pop-up window appears. It offers a discount on your next purchase. Click on the ad and you are automatically redirected to another company's site where you are signed up for a buying club, travel club or credit card protection service. The yearly cost is usually $100 to $145. Here's where things really get smarmy. Even though you did not give that second company any account information, they will bill the credit or debit card number you used to make the original purchase. You didn't have to provide your account number because the 'trusted' retailer gave it to them for a cut of the action." While there is no law preventing this sort of behavior, Cuomo hopes the investigation will pressure these companies to change their ways, or at least inform customers when their information might be shared.
not really. not with any teeth, anyway.
the trouble is that while the rest of the world sees "caveat emptor" as a sad and unfortunate truth about the world, the US sees it as a virtue - if you can con someone into paying good money for worthless crap then you deserve to keep what you've "earned". More to the point, the victim *DESERVED* to get ripped off because they were stupid and careless.
it's the same kind of callous and cruel attitude behind the typical US-ian attitude that poor people are poor because they deserve to be poor...and, worse, that they deserve contempt, not support and certain not welfare for that sin.
it's more than just a blindness to systemic problems and inequities that lead to either ripoffs or poverty...it really is a callous and, at times, vindictive attitude towards the unfortunate.