The Future of Shopping: Trapping You in a Club You Didn't Know You Joined (bloomberg.com)

Other scams... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-30 23:39 · Score: 4, Informative

Dealdash dot com... charges you $0.60 per automatic bid even if you don't win the auction. The TV ads are highly deceiving. They even have an elaborate troll system to make their reviews look good. Hellcatx... they are running a massive TV ad campaign for a car giveaway that supposedly helps charity. The prises are probably worth 1/100th of the income, and no mention of how much actually goes to charity.

Re:Other scams... by JustBoo · 2016-05-01 03:55 · Score: 5, Informative

Here is THE ANSWER. Use Paypal.
First, you won't be giving your credit card info to gawd knows who. It can be literally anyone from a group of criminals in Russia to psycho teens in Brazil to douche companies described in the article. If a 'company' does not have the wherewithal and ability to get setup to take Paypal, do you really want to give them your credit card anyway? If they don't take Paypal, I consider the company incompetent or scam artists.
If you still somehow get on some recurring plan through Paypal, that is registered with Paypal as an actively recurring charge, you can go to Paypal and simply change the status of that account to inactive. Done. Paypal will no longer payout to them.
I've done this myself with so-called companies that refuse to stop billing me. I check the list at least once a month. it has saved my tones of time and money. Note, I am not affiliated with Paypal in any way and rarely recommend any business. But with online shopping, Paypal has truly worked for me.
Re:Other scams... by HiThere · 2016-05-01 05:13 · Score: 4, Informative

Odd comment. Based on prior stories I have included PayPal as one of the scam companies.
A better answer, though one that's bothersome, is to have a special limited credit card, and use that for web purchases. Many drugstores sell them, and probably many other places do too. But doing it that way is a bother. I've opted for a less secure way...I use two separate banks. One to store money, and one the handle transactions. The credit cards are linked to the one that only hold a small amount of cash at a time, and where I periodically refill the accounts. So you can choose your degree of security by deciding how much cash to hold in your transaction accounts.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Other scams... by ArmoredDragon · 2016-05-01 09:36 · Score: 1

The annoying thing about paypal is that they default to billing your checking account instead of your credit card, and it's impossible to change it without deleting your bank account. The lame thing about deleting your bank account is that if you ever need to receive funds through paypal, they make you go through an aggravating (and sometimes several days long) process to verify your account. I rarely receive funds via paypal by the way, but when you sell on ebay or swappa it's rude to make the buyer wait several days for your account verification.
Paypal always argues that it costs you money to make credit card transactions, under the premise that you'll pay interest and whatnot, but it's a load of shit. They just want to avoid the merchant fees that they have to pay the credit card companies. My credit cards cost me nothing (I've never had to actually pay interest) and even include 1.5% cash back, so effectively my credit cards give me money rather than the other way around.
Re:Other scams... by ShooterNeo · 2016-05-01 09:41 · Score: 2

Random complaints by a few disgruntled users do not automatically make Paypal a "scam". In fact, most of the complaints I have seen are cases where paypal holds money back to prevent possible financial losses. For instance, when Notch started selling Minecraft, paypal temporarily suspended his account because thousands of $10 transactions were suspicious to their heuristics. They didn't keep the money, and soon restored his service.
Re:Other scams... by david_thornley · 2016-05-02 04:15 · Score: 1

There's reasons why I never told PayPal where my checking account is. PayPal already does pretty much what I need it to do without being attached to a bank account.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Other scams... by Obfuscant · 2016-05-02 10:01 · Score: 1

I reached a $10,000 limit in buying through PayPal, and they demanded I link my account to a bank account 'for security'. The argument that "I've spent $10,000 through you over ten years or so without any problem at all, so now it's a security issue?" didn't get around that.
So now they have a link into an account that has $5 (plus some small amount of interest) in it, and I have to change the payment method each time I buy something (which is pretty simple, not "impossible" as another poster claimed).
The upside of the matter was that it alerted me to the fact that the bank account had gone dormant and I needed to do something (like a PayPal withdraw/deposit) to reactivate it.
Re:Other scams... by david_thornley · 2016-05-03 04:31 · Score: 1

I had no idea they did that. Thanks for sharing.

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Other scams... by beastofburdon · 2016-05-03 05:47 · Score: 1

If you rely on a credit card for financial security you have some severe issues with handling your money.
Re:Other scams... by beastofburdon · 2016-05-03 06:05 · Score: 1

Can you have two paypal accounts? You could have one for buying stuff and one that is used exclusively for receiving payments.

cue libertarian fucktards... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-30 23:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

...telling us that it's "your own fault for not reading the smallprint", even though

1) Capitalism is philosophically based upon perfectly informed rational consumers, which these guys aren't, by definition;

2) It's made deliberately hard, but not impossible, to cancel, by the company purely being a bunch of shitlords without necessarily technically breaking any law (not everything can be reduced to clear rules);

3) Society gains no benefit from protecting a ridiculous contract, so it would be irrational to do so.

Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by Archtech · 2016-05-01 00:33 · Score: 5, Interesting

Capitalism is philosophically based upon perfectly informed rational consumers, which these guys aren't, by definition
There is, in fact, no such thing as a perfectly informed rational customer, there never has been and there never will be. Those two "simplifying" assumptions are typical of the fundamental defects that render economics almost worthless in its present form. Of course economists like simplifying assumptions, because otherwise their field would be far too complicated to make any sense out of. Unfortunately the assumptions mean that the resulting rules and laws apply only in an abstract world which hardly bears any resemblance to the real world we live in.
1. "Perfectly informed". Even in the simplest possible model of a market, a village produce market where fruit and vegetables are being sold from a collection of stalls, perfect information is far from guaranteed. Who knows what Fred has been spraying on his pumpkins? And have those delicious-looking peaches been previously frozen, transported, and defrosted? Usually the vendors will know, and maybe a few others - but then it is in the interest of the vendors to keep the information secret, even at the cost of a bribe or quid pro quo favour. Thus the concealment of important product information actually becomes part of the market, with its own price. Consider now a more sophisticated, "evolved" market such as the electronic stock exchanges where corporations will pay huge sums of money to have their servers a few feet closer to the exchange's own servers. That may give them a few nanoseconds' head start, which may be enough to make the difference between winning billions and losing billions. Again, we see payments (this time, very large ones) being made precisely to prevent information being perfectly shared. And the pattern is repeated everywhere.
2. "Rational customers". This one departs even further from reality and common sense. If you think about it for five minutes, you will see that the very concept of a "rational customer" is wholly artificial and almost meaningless in relation to the real world. We are all rational, more or less by definition, as a function of being human. But what does that really mean? I think you'll agree that virtually all humans use reason (facts and logic) as a tool when they need to, never as a way of deciding what it is they want. To suggest that all customers can be "rational" is, in effect, to make the ridiculous assumption that they are wholly focused all of the time on making financial gains! It would be more realistic to say that a rational person is one who devotes as little time, effort and attention to economic necessaities as possible, the better to enjoy the good things of life - which are NOT money (as such) or buying and selling. It is true, to some extent, that those who do best at the economic "game" are those who focus on it most unremittingly - spending almost all their waking time in business activities and reckoning their success in life solely by their net worth. For such people, the Bible has a warning.
"And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God". (Luke 12:16-21) http://biblehub.com/kjv/luke/1...

--
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by prefec2 · 2016-05-01 01:43 · Score: 1

This is really strange that such things are legal in the US.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by yuriklastalov · 2016-05-01 02:17 · Score: 1

But without ubiquitous, heavy handed government intervention how are we supposed to know if our peaches were previously frozen???
Because we all know how scrupulously honest and forthright the government is, amiright?
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by yuriklastalov · 2016-05-01 02:22 · Score: 2

Our wonderful, most scrupulously honest and forthright government will surely do exactly what is in our best interest... right? Luckily for us, only the most civic minded patriots work for the government.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by mspohr · 2016-05-01 02:22 · Score: 1

I trust government more than any greedy corporation.

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I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by l0n3s0m3phr34k · 2016-05-01 02:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

If people actually fit their ideal of "rational customers", then ideas like "buyer's remorse", "Post-purchase rationalization", "Winner's curse", etc. The fact that these terms exist show that no consumer (or human, assuming all humans are consumers) are ever 100% "rational" when it comes to the "market" and purchasing. If we were, the "impulse buy" area next to the check-outs wouldn't exist.

Taking this a step further, it also shows that the idea of the perfect "free market" is a false idea as well, since it requires a 100% rational customer 100% of the time. It also infers no marketing or product trickery, which is also obviously never going to happen. The only way THAT could happen was if somehow a new "market" that somehow intrinsically required complete transparency appeared...and all sellers involved had to "start over" so no current brands or corps could participate. Honestly, the original Silk Road was probably one of the closest manifestations of this we've seen in recent history.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by mysidia · 2016-05-01 03:11 · Score: 1

Who says they are legal? It's a probable violation of the FTC act. I think they're playing the game that the specific practice/scam is relatively new with this medium (Partly, because they need to see how the law applies to this new scam, possibly against false contentions by vendors that they are all legal), and vendors hoping to make off with a quick illicit buck, and be half across the world with a few hundred million$$, because the government sometimes moves slowly to enforce the law on these types of issues.
Note it took a couple years for Amazon to be ordered to refund unintended app purchases by children.....
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by complete+loony · 2016-05-01 03:17 · Score: 4, Informative

One of the cleverest features of the rational expectations revolution was the appropriation of the term "rational." Thereby, the opponents of this approach were forced into the defensive position of either being irrational or of modeling others as irrational, neither of which are comfortable positions for most economists. (Barro 1984)
I suggest that critics instead adopt the attacking position of describing this concept (the capacity to foretell the whole future of the economy) as a dictionary would, as "Prophetic Expectations".
The Dodgy Dynamics of Economics
The rest of that paper focuses on demolishing the whole concept.

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09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 03:30 · Score: 1

I probably shouldn't get into this discussion, but here goes:
There isn't really a good solution. The free market tends to reward those who exhibit scummy behaviour:
http://www.victorianweb.org/science/health/health1.html
If you're a new entrant into the field, you're practically forced bending your principles because there's no objective trust, so people who add chalk to their milk can always produce a cheaper product than you. If you're established, what possible reason (other than idealism) could you have to not adulterate your products if there's no one to verify?
I do understand the fear of government overreach and tyranny, sure. But one of these systems fines bad actors, while the other rewards them. The collateral damage of government is that maybe some businesses don't get started which should have; the collateral damage of the free market is that you end up drinking chalk because there's no trustworthy objective measure.
So the question is, how much collateral damage are we willing to accept, as a society? It's obviously bad to control everything everywhere in a failed bid to remove risk from everything - that would be rather dystopian - but an absolute free-for-all isn't much better. So instead of talking about absolute ideals, what compromises are you willing to make?
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by jcr · 2016-05-01 03:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

Oh, fuck off. Libertarians don't support deceptive business practices.
-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 05:07 · Score: 1

Those two "simplifying" assumptions are typical of the fundamental defects that render economics almost worthless in its present form
Populist!!
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by HiThere · 2016-05-01 05:23 · Score: 1

You shouldn't. They are vaguely trustworthy for different things.
The amount you can trust a powerful person (without knowing the personal history) depends upon how much they will suffer from abusing your trust.
The "personal history" thing is because some people (most people actually, but not most people who become powerful) are well meaning and generally honest. If you can determine that the specific powerful person you are considering trusting is such a person, then it's reasonable to trust them a lot more. But this doesn't mean that you should trust their successors in power...and powerful people frequently change positions.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by HiThere · 2016-05-01 05:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

No. libertarians don't support deceptive business practices. Libertarians do support deceptive business practices in that they are opposed to all means possible for impeding them. (And while libertarians [lower case "l"] don't support deceptive business practices, they are incoherent about how they should be stopped.)
To say that you are opposed to something while at the same time being explicitly against all possible means of opposing it gives the lie to your original claim...or shows that you are incoherent.

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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by mspohr · 2016-05-01 05:32 · Score: 4, Insightful

Corporations are accountable to their managers and stockholders and have only one goal... maximize profit (at my expense).
Governments are at least in theory accountable to voters and do not have a profit motive. (However, we all know that governments can be corrupted by corporations buying favors.)
So, if I have to choose between a greedy corporation whose only goal is taking my money or a government accountable to voters (which may or may not have been corrupted), I'll choose the government.

--
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by HiThere · 2016-05-01 05:36 · Score: 1

Well, you've excluded all web purchases I've ever seen. This may not be unreasonable, given the "contracts" and EULAs that are usually offered, but do realize what you're saying.
And have you gone to an Emergency Room recently? And been in NEED of urgent care?
I think your position is unreasonable. And I think most of the contracts I've seen offered to individuals by corporations should be declared unenforceable contracts of adhesion. That they aren't tells you who has power.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by Dutch+Gun · 2016-05-01 06:00 · Score: 1

You have to weigh that against the fact that a greedy corporation can ultimately do nothing to you, while the government has the power to fine you or send you to jail, and they can send a group of heavily armed men to break down your door to force you to comply with their decisions. Moreover, there is only one government, meaning it's a de facto monopoly that you *must* interact with, while you can typically choose to do business with a different company, or avoid doing business with it at all.
It's important to keep the profit motive in mind when dealing with corporations, but the best businesses understand that a part of making long-term profits means engaging in a mutually-beneficial, long-term relationship with their customers. There are plenty of businesses I've interacted with in which this is the case - they just don't make the news.
Don't mistake this as belief that we need to abandon all government oversight or regulation, any more than we need to abandon our civil laws just because most people are fundamentally decent. However, the same principles apply in keeping as light a hand as is practical - it's important not to weigh businesses down with excessive regulations or taxation, because that hurts the economy as a whole and stifles innovation in the private sector.
But we see here a very legitimate case in which the government may wish to consider additional rules and regulation in what is a very deliberate and obvious abuse of existing commerce laws. I'd support additional regulation stipulating that a company can't legally keep customers on hold for hours on a time when they're trying to quit. If you can sign up online, the company should legally be required to allow you to cancel online as well. Something simple like that would probably do at a minimum. I know California was already proposing a similar law - at least for certain industries, if I recall.

--
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by sjames · 2016-05-01 06:19 · Score: 1

And that is exactly why the government doesn't have a financial incentive to tell you only good news.
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by sjames · 2016-05-01 06:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Nor do they support any practical way to put a stop to them.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by mspohr · 2016-05-01 06:48 · Score: 2

A greedy corporation has the same power as government to fine you or put you in jail if you don't abide by their rules. (Just try not paying a bill from some corporation and you'll quickly find out how powerful they are.)
Corporations have found that threats and intimidation are much more effective than "customer service" in extracting money from you. Most of the time you don't have an alternative to their effective monopoly (Comcast anyone?).
Taxation does not stifle corporations or individuals initiative as proven by the high growth and high tax rates in the 50s and 60s.

--
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by dryeo · 2016-05-01 07:01 · Score: 4, Informative

You have to weigh that against the fact that a greedy corporation can ultimately do nothing to you, while the government has the power to fine you or send you to jail, and they can send a group of heavily armed men to break down your door to force you to comply with their decisions.
Just yesterday I saw the private railway police, so yes there are still corporate forces that have the power to arrest you.
It wasn't that long ago that corporations had much more power, see eg the Pinkerton Detective Agency who at one point was larger then the military of the USA and routinely beat and killed people the corporations were unfriendly with.
There's a reason that we've transferred most all law enforcement to the government, mainly that they're more (or at least were) responsible then big business to the people. Businesses ultimate goal is to make sure you have no choice but to deal with them and at times have been very successful at this.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by sjames · 2016-05-01 07:01 · Score: 1

What of the seller's good faith. Shouldn't the seller be making a good faith effort to make the terms of the sale clear rather than hiding key points in the fine print? Shoul;dn't good faith dictate that the seller actually has the legal right to make the sale (e.g. actually owns what he is selling)?
What you describe is a predator-prey relationship. Is that what you really think should be the basis of civilization?
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by Kjella · 2016-05-01 08:10 · Score: 1

There is, in fact, no such thing as a perfectly informed rational customer, there never has been and there never will be. Those two "simplifying" assumptions are typical of the fundamental defects that render economics almost worthless in its present form. Of course economists like simplifying assumptions, because otherwise their field would be far too complicated to make any sense out of. Unfortunately the assumptions mean that the resulting rules and laws apply only in an abstract world which hardly bears any resemblance to the real world we live in.
It's a simplification like a CPU taking one instruction after another, you don't start them off on a superpipelined hyperthreaded prefetching NUMA heterogeneous cluster and try to explain that.

1. "Perfectly informed"
Marketing theory has a ton of information on imperfect information, including perceived quality, substitution variables, effects of brand and reputation, behavior under uncertainty, unbalanced information like switching costs, speed of adoption from trendsetters to followers to holdouts and so on. It just so happens that in most cases it is not all that relevant to the topic because your competitor probably has an equivalent marketing department that do exactly the same.

2. "Rational customers"
Even within the context of rational customers you can have wildly "irrational" utility functions, it does not involve sane priorities only that people would behave optimally to meet their goals. Like people that "penny-wise and pound-foolish" and there's theory on when and why that happens. But ordinarily it's just noise, you both lose and get some and in the total market it's usually an insignificant effect and one you can't really change much either.
No, it was not covered in Business 101. But there are actually advanced classes there too, where they investigate all these simplifying constraints. And sure if you apply assumptions where they're not valid you end up with a spherical cow, but economics is certainly not the only such subject. In fact, much of it is quite sane except for the stock market which is about outguessing everyone else and is more of a group psychology game. Actually running a business and making money that way is quite a bit more down to earth than that. And then there's macro economics, which is economics mixed with politics. Ick.

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by jdavidb · 2016-05-01 08:58 · Score: 1

Okay, I'm a libertarian fucktard, and that's not my position at all. My position is that you can have whatever goofball contract you want, but the rest of us shouldn't have to bear the cost of enforcing it. That actually makes a lot of contracts blissfully unenforceable. :)

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Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
Re: cue libertarian fucktards... by sexconker · 2016-05-01 14:13 · Score: 1

When you get a call or notice from a collection agency, challenge the debt and ask for proof of the debt.
If they cannot provide proof of the debt, they must stop hassling you. If they don't, call a lawyer and take them, and the original company, to court.
It's a fucking hassle, but it's a slam fucking dunk if you get your shit together and handle it.
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by jcr · 2016-05-01 15:43 · Score: 1

Libertarians do support deceptive business practices in that they are opposed to all means possible for impeding them.
How sad that a bootlicker like you can't imagine anything better than the status quo to regulate deception in the market. Tell me, how good a job did the SEC do in protecting people from Bernie Madoff?
-jcr

--
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by david_thornley · 2016-05-02 04:20 · Score: 1

A customer won't normally have perfect information about the merchandise, but that's not what we're talking about. If the customer doesn't have perfect information on the deal, then there is no meeting of the minds and hence no agreement and (theoretically anyway) no binding contract.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:cue libertarian fucktards... by david_thornley · 2016-05-02 04:28 · Score: 1

There's lots of libertarians out there with different beliefs. It's not like you have to pass a government-imposed orthodoxy exam to call yourself a libertarian. If you talk to libertarians and they disagree with each other, they're not incoherent as much as disagreeing with each other, and some are indeed unrealistic.
Many libertarians have hopelessly idealistic ideas about how business would work in the absence of regulation, but there are other people with hopelessly idealistic or ideological ideas. Libertarians are generally against government overreach (just like everybody else), but disagree in how much government is really needed (just like everybody else).

--
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Ten CDs for a buck by dosius · 2016-04-30 23:46 · Score: 2

Isn't it a variation of the Columbia House type of shyst?

--
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b

Re:Ten CDs for a buck by cellocgw · 2016-04-30 23:53 · Score: 3, Informative

Sounds like it to me. And at least back in those days, you could return anything you didn't want for free. But the LP/CD clubs didn't charge a monthly fee for belonging, which I think is the new twist here.
Personally, I'd send a return-receipt registered letter telling them you ain't a member any more, and use that when it gets to lawsuit or debt-collection time.

--
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
Re:Ten CDs for a buck by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 00:59 · Score: 1

Isn't it a variation of the Columbia House type of shyst?
No, because:
1) In this case, the consumer is tricked. They are led to believe that they are making a 1-time purchase, not signing up for a subscription
2) With Columbia House, any reasonable person could see that it was a subscription service, just from the initial price alone (10 CDs for a penny). Columbia House marketing materials were pretty clear about the expectations (must purchase ## CDs in YY amount of time, at ZZ retail price).
Also, Amazon is pretty bad with this to (sneaky tricks to enroll you into services). As an example: pick their "Free Shipping" option when purchasing something, and they auto-enroll your into their Prime 'service'. Wife got enrolled into some kind of Audio-Book club on Amazon, when purchasing some unrelated thing.
Re:Ten CDs for a buck by fermion · 2016-05-01 04:38 · Score: 1

I love the Archer running joke on this...
Columbia house is a bit different because they did not take you money before the fact. Columbia house had to invest in resources to get customers to pay. Most did not give a credit card that would be billed every month.
This is more akin to the health club model, where you sign up, give a credit card, and are obligated to make payments for the rest of your life. This is where I find the flaw to be in these enterprises. Not that you are signing up to make payments for a year or two, but you are signing up to make forever, and to cancel requires some effort. I could deal with health clubs on shopping clubs if they allowed you to cancel, or suspend as Hulu does, simply by clicking a button on a web site. I can't deal with canceling being any more difficult than that.
Fortunately credit cards do provide some protection for the consumer. I would think that if one sent a complaint to the credit card company with a screen shot showing you made a a call to cancel and it was not answered for 30 minutes, so the charge is fraudulent, this would end the charge., I suspect if a charge appeared on the credit card after sending an email canceling the service, that charge would also be seen as fraudulent. I think if enough people did this, the cost of fraudulent charges would cause a business to go under.

--
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Re:Ten CDs for a buck by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 04:51 · Score: 1

It's telling when someone brings up Columbia House as a scam. I belonged for about 5 years to both Columbia House and BMG and never felt scammed. It wasn't cheap but it wasn't more expensive than the local music shops. And the fucks out there who felt that it sucked because they actually had to (GASP!) open their mail and reply in a timely fashion were just assholes who shouldn't have been trusted with just about anything.
Lazy fucktards blaming the companies they do business with are real bitches and they should be beaten back like a two-bit whore.
Re:Ten CDs for a buck by sjames · 2016-05-01 07:25 · Score: 1

Yes but worse. The Columbia price of $0.01 for 10 was a huge red flag. The AdoreMe prices are not that obviously too good to be true.
Columbia at least gave you something for the additional charges. (Apparently AdoreMe gives store credit now, but didn't at first).

They should have called it by Anonymous Coward · 2016-04-30 23:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

Adore Me Prime

Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 00:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

It is shit like this that makes me glad I use disposable credit card numbers for every single online purchase. In 15 years, I've never had a case of fraud or any other problem. But they have saved my butt a bunch of times. My bank emails me for every rejected authorization so I've seen every time some lowlife 'merchant' tried to charge me without my consent. Most recently Angie's List was trying nearly every day for about two months to "renew" a subscription.

If you have a Bank of America or Citibank credit card account then you already have access to disposable numbers. There are other smaller banks (especially outside of the US) who support disposable numbers too.

Re:Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by nukenerd · 2016-05-01 00:36 · Score: 1

I don't use disposable credit cards, but for some things (like web purchases) I use one that I could shutter at short notice, still leaving me with others.

However I have never had to do that, although I have come close to it. The consumer protection laws in the UK are stronger than those in the Land-of-the-Free-to-Con-Who-you-Want, it seems.
Re:Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by ak8b · 2016-05-01 00:55 · Score: 1

I do the same thing - especially with someone I haven't dealt with before. Citibank also lets you set up one with time and/or dollar limits so you can use it for recurring monthly charges. The only downside to that is you have to remember to extend it when the time comes.
Re: Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by orlanz · 2016-05-01 02:03 · Score: 2

You don't need a disposable. You can just block a transaction on your CC. Literally 5 min email. I had a random 5 dollar charge that hit my CC. Took a while to figure out who it was and probably spent 30 minutes trying to unsubscribe. Couldn't, 3 sentences later had the last 3 months charges reversed. Showed up again 2 months later. Emailed the CC company and they blocked the charger. Nothing since.
Re:Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by tepples · 2016-05-01 03:50 · Score: 1

TOS usually states that no changes are effective unless approved by a duly authorized representative of the service provider.
Re:Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by fermion · 2016-05-01 04:45 · Score: 1

If you agree to make payments, then you are liable for those payments. The issue here is if the firm is sufficiently disclosing the fact that it is a subscription service with recurring monthly fees, and if it is sufficiently disclosing how to cancel. Any credit card charge can be disputed, and if the firm is in fact collecting without disclosure the charge will be revoked. Likewise if you make an agreement to pay then pay using credentials you know will expire, that is similar to writing a bad check.
The reason these service thrive is that people do not use their credit card aggressively as a weapon. I recall one set of charges that were placed on my card by a third party, but branded by my credit card. I called the credit card company and was told I first had to call the third party. I told the credit card that it was branded by them, and I had the literature, so they were liable, and the charges were gone. The credit card will usually throw merchants and partners under the bus to protect the brand.

--
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Re:Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by sconeu · 2016-05-01 05:29 · Score: 1

AMEX used to offer disposable numbers (Amex Private Payments), but for some reason, discontinued them several years ago,
I wish they still did offer them.

--
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Re: Always Use Disposable Credit Card #s by guruevi · 2016-05-01 06:31 · Score: 1

But that also doesn't punish the vendor. I cancel the entire purchase the minute a fraudulent charge comes through. Doesn't matter if they already shipped, I no longer want to do business with them and they can ship me a box and schedule a UPS pickup if they want their shit back.

--
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com

Ignorance is Timeless. by geekmux · 2016-05-01 00:19 · Score: 2

(PT Barnum) "Wow. Never thought the family business would still be thriving well today."

(CEO of Murphy's Law and and Practice) "No shit, Sherlock."

(Sherlock) "Oh piss off, Murphy. Even Watson wouldn't fall for this."

(Watson) "Hey guys, check this out! I just bought 10 CD's for a penny!

Reverse the charge by smooth+wombat · 2016-05-01 00:21 · Score: 4, Informative

The moment you see the charge hit your bill you contact your credit card company and have them do a chargeback. Tell them you've been trying to cancel with this company who refuses to honor your request and these are fraudulent charges.

The credit card company will remove the charge from your bill then attempt to collect from the other company.

Rinse and repeat each month.

http://www.geeksonfinance.com/...

--
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Re:Reverse the charge by chepati · 2016-05-01 01:01 · Score: 5, Interesting

DON'T DO THIS ON A REGULAR BASIS!!! This will negatively affect your credit score and will cost you much more than some paltry couple hundred bucks in comparison in the long run.
I never thought I'd say this, but there is safety in shopping at big chains (Wallmart, Amazon, etc) -- they get much heavier scrutiny and can't get away with sleazy business practices for long. They are regulated, they have to report their finances, etc. On the other hand, small operations run from a garage in a third-world place, don't have to abide by the same laws so the only buffer between you and them is your credit card company. The CC company *will* protect you, but if you fall into the category of a habitual scam victim, you'll be flagged as a high-risk customer and your credit score will take a beating.
Speaking of sleazy companies, I was almost scammed by a VPN company advertised here on ./ -- they had a "lifetime" membership that looked too good to be true. I did my due diligence and contacted the company to get assurance that "lifetime" meant forever. At that point I went in and got the promotional 3 day trial and both the service and customer support were pretty good, so I ended up contacting them again and getting the lifetime package. First they sent me a paypal invoice for a recurring payment type of service. That should have been the red flag, but like most people, even those who believe can spot a scam a mile away, I got greedy and ignored my gut feeling that things that are too good to be true, are never truly good. After getting reassured that the recurring payments invoice was a clerical error, I proceeded to pay via paypal. At this point I saw that the paypal payment was actually a recurring payment service. Long story short, I kept contacting their Tech Support department every day for a week and getting the run arounds, until I decided that enough was enough and opened a charge dispute with paypal. A day later I got a vindictive letter from the VPN company telling me that now that I had opened a dispute with Paypal, they will await Paypal's decision and if the case was decided in their favor, they would neither issue a refund, nor provide service to me. It was so childish that I could not stop laughing. However, minutes later I got another email that the VPN company had decided to refund the full amount on an exceptional basis.
So the moral of the story -- stay away from questionable internet outfits. And keep one thing in mind -- no matter how smart you believe yourself to be and how discerning and cautious, there are people out there who spend the time and effort to hone their con artistry skills so well that you won't realized you were had until you've parted ways with your money. If it's too good a deal, it's a scam.
Also, try to put a a few buffers between you and questionable merchants. In my case, I deliberately chose to pay via PayPal, because I knew they have a good dispute process and because my instinct told me I may have to come to rely on it. I was right. My absolutely last resort would have been my credit card issuing bank.
Re:Reverse the charge by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 01:31 · Score: 1

I would think that it would affect the credit score of the merchant.
If it affects your credit score, then something is very wrong with the credit score system.
Re:Reverse the charge by JimMcc · 2016-05-01 03:07 · Score: 1

Another moral to this story is don't by anything advertised on /. I've looked at a couple of the offers and researched the feedback on the companies. They had horrible feedback. So has /. become the haven of scammers and garbage merchants?
Re:Reverse the charge by GTRacer · 2016-05-01 04:25 · Score: 2

I deliberately chose to pay via PayPal, because I knew they have a good dispute process[...]
Hahahahahahahaaaaa! I'm glad they've been good to you, but they refused to refund me when I purchased a used Galaxy Note 3 with "clean IMEI". Phone worked fine for about a month then stopped. Turns out someone got it from TMobile on installment and walked away from the payments (presumably got it using fraudulent paperwork/payment then sold it to a "refurbisher" to launder it).

Here's the rub - CheckMend NEVER showed the fraud hold, even AFTER it was turned off. TMobile was happy to tell me why the phone was deactivated but eBay and PayPal bounced me back and forth and eventually said I'd waited too long to report it. Well duh, the fraud didn't manifest immediately. In the end I picked up a new IMEI and I'm good now, though I won't be recommending eBay or PayPal to anyone anytime soon.

--
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Re:Reverse the charge by JThundley · 2016-05-01 08:06 · Score: 1

What VPN company was it? I think I saw the same deal and also thought "this is too good to be true" and signed up for ProXPN lifetime.
Re:Reverse the charge by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 15:08 · Score: 1

I would think that it would affect the credit score of the merchant.
If it affects your credit score, then something is very wrong with the credit score system.
You are correct. Something is very wrong with the credit score system.
Re:Reverse the charge by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-02 00:51 · Score: 1

> can't get away with sleazy business practices for long
Clearly you've never heard of Paypal

About those "funky songs" by fyngyrz · 2016-05-01 00:29 · Score: 1

About those funky songs, I have only this to say.

--
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.

Re: About those "funky songs" by hackwrench · 2016-05-01 04:16 · Score: 1

There's a closed door pharmacy in Muncie, IN, that has an instrumental arrangement of "Still Alive" from the game "Portal" as their hold music.

Re:Donald Trump will fix this. by fyngyrz · 2016-05-01 00:31 · Score: 2

He has been sent by God to make America great again.

He has been sent by God to make America grate again.

FTFY

--
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.

Not difficult to cancel by ebonum · 2016-05-01 00:31 · Score: 3, Informative

One call to the credit card company and all will be fixed.
I think most people will be pleased to find how easy it is to get their credit card company to reject all new charges from a online vendor plus credit you back for whatever was taken.
Plus, when Mastercard or Visa see a lot of problems with a vendor, MC and Visa will cut them off. Or make it more expensive/difficult for the bad company to operate.

Re:Not difficult to cancel by tomhath · 2016-05-01 00:45 · Score: 1

Exactly. Just dispute the charge, the company won't fight it.
And file a complaint against the bad company.
Re:Not difficult to cancel by Ryanrule · 2016-05-01 01:56 · Score: 1

If they counter you hit them with a truck.
Re:Not difficult to cancel by Solandri · 2016-05-01 04:55 · Score: 1

Credit card companies are extremely lenient when it comes to subscriptions. I guess they receive way more complaints from people whose subscriptions were canceled because they forgot to update their credit card info (with a replacement for a lost/stolen or expired card), than they do from people who have illegitimate subscription charges placed on their card.

I once lost my credit card and canceled it. They sent me a new card. A month later a mysterious charge appeared on my new card. When I investigated, it turned out someone had found my old card, and used it to charge a subscription processed as a charge dated to before I lost my card (not all businesses post all their CC transactions every night). When my credit card company received it, they assumed it pre-dated my lost/stolen card report, and "helpfully" transferred the charge to my new card with a totally different number because I wouldn't want to miss out on my legit subscription, right?
Re:Not difficult to cancel by Intron · 2016-05-01 10:19 · Score: 1

Which card was it?

--
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.

Re:TS lives in a country without consumer protecti by nukenerd · 2016-05-01 00:31 · Score: 2

I'm reminded of the recent story about Comcast. In California at least there are efforts to make this type of nonsense illegal.

Re:Donald Trump will fix this. by iTrawl · 2016-05-01 00:55 · Score: 2

He sent himself? That puts quite a few things in perspective. Last time he sent his son.

--
"Everybody's naked underneath" -- The Doctor

Re: Isn't that illegal? by Z00L00K · 2016-05-01 01:03 · Score: 1

At least here such practice may be seen as negative agreement action, which is considered illegal.

--
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.

Re: My first job as an adult by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 01:34 · Score: 1, Insightful

Dude, moral agency of that level does not apply to the young. They lack both the experience and the economic freedom to make principled decisions in almost all cases except those of life and death.

CC Dispute by flyingfsck · 2016-05-01 01:38 · Score: 3, Informative

The easiest way to reverse it is to call your credit card company and dispute the charges.

--
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!

Re:CC Dispute by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 04:29 · Score: 1

Except if you are in Canada and use Mastercard. I was told that, as the card-holder, that I do NOT get to say which charges on the card are valid and which are not. Only Mastercard gets to decide that. If I want to dispute something, then I have to fill out a form and mail or fax (fax?!) it to them. Then they will decide. This is after being their customer for over 30 years and trying to dispute a $25 charge. Fuck them - I didn't pay it and I threw away their card. Weird because the only other time I needed to fix up the card account was about 20 years ago and I got a $600 charge removed from the card with a simple phone call.
Re: CC Dispute by Anonymous Coward · 2016-05-01 05:18 · Score: 1

Remember the old "The customer is always right"?
Corporations don't.
Re:CC Dispute by guruevi · 2016-05-01 06:27 · Score: 2

Yep, I once got charged with one of these clubs from a store, just cancelled the entire purchase through my CC company because the original receipt was fraudulent. They get slapped with a nasty charge back fee ($32/charge) and are out of shipping and merchandise. I also stopped purchasing through them.

--
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com

Re:Donald Trump will fix this. by wbr1 · 2016-05-01 01:44 · Score: 1

He has been sent by God to make America great again.

He has been sent by God to make America grate again.

FTFY

He has been sent by God to make America hate again.

ftfy both

--
Silence is a state of mime.

This is a tempest in a D cup by Applehu+Akbar · 2016-05-01 01:52 · Score: 1

Take a look at the Adore Me site. It advertises "advantages of membership" right on the first page, making the subscription model as obvious as Columbia House.

Re:This is a tempest in a D cup by H_Fisher · 2016-05-01 04:52 · Score: 2

Take a look at the Adore Me site. It advertises "advantages of membership" right on the first page, making the subscription model as obvious as Columbia House.
Yeah, and if you'd read TFA, you'd also know that only recently has the company changed its website extensively to emphasize that fact, after a flood of consumer complaints and the potential for state attorneys general to get involved.
Nice pun, anyway.

Re:Donald Trump will fix this. by yuriklastalov · 2016-05-01 02:23 · Score: 1

Yeah, maybe people will finally throw the yoke of smug liberal pricks off from around their necks.

Make America Throw Out the Smug Liberal Fucktards Again. MATOSLFA!!

Re:cue republican fucktards... by msk · 2016-05-01 02:32 · Score: 1

Cue Clarke's _Imperial Earth_

Re:TS lives in a country without consumer protecti by l0n3s0m3phr34k · 2016-05-01 02:32 · Score: 1

But a true "free market" has no governmentally-inforced laws. The only laws allowed are those that arise as a manifestation of the way the market itself works, like buyer / seller reputations, etc.

I refuse false charge. My card goes brick. by jclaer · 2016-05-01 02:47 · Score: 1

I reported bogus magazine subscription to my credit union (Stanford) so they canceled my credit card without telling me. So then I'm finding many bills I want to pay are not being paid.

Re:Amazon by i.r.id10t · 2016-05-01 02:56 · Score: 1

Dunno. I got a 6 month free trial for prime with a .edu email address. One click and it was discontinued....

--
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos

Re:Amazon by mlts · 2016-05-01 03:27 · Score: 2

The thing about Amazon, Apple, Google, and Netflix's services is that they can be cancelled with a mouse click. In fact, it sounds odd, but it helps their customer sat, because if people find it easy to leave, they will be far more likely to come back. This is in stark contract to companies that would require you to call a special number and fight it out with some offshore rep to cancel the card. Having to sit on the telephone for hours on end virtually -guarantees- someone who leaves is not coming back, ever.

The surprise subscription thing is one reason I will buy from a local shop, or Amazon, even if the prices are higher than a no-name site, just because there is less chance of fraud or spurious charges popping up, and any services that repeat that I do buy are easily cancelled.

Re:The easiest answer is: by mlts · 2016-05-01 03:29 · Score: 1

Also check your credit record afterwards. Some places will put adverse entries on it once they realize they can't slurp from your account any more.

Oh, and this goes without saying... NEVER give a bank account ID. Even years after the account is closed, someone can draw from it, rendering the account negative, and if not paid in a week, making an entry onto ChexSystems, which ensures banks won't even open a checking account for the victim for seven years.

Re:TS lives in a country without consumer protecti by tepples · 2016-05-01 03:49 · Score: 1

Is it still "free will" if one is forced into a contract under duress, such as the threat of jail if you do not agree to the terms? Jail may not be applicable in this case, but it is applicable in cases around necessities such as food, clothing, shelter, and utilities.

No mention of UDAAP?? by Szeraax · 2016-05-01 04:40 · Score: 1

Unfair, deceptive, or abusive acts are all things companies are not allowed to do. They can be charged for doing this and should be.

Use ShopSafe or a virtual CC by fahrbot-bot · 2016-05-01 06:05 · Score: 2

Bank of America offers ShopSafe (perhaps others offer something similar) that allows one to create a virtual CC (with unique number and CSC) associated with your real CC. You can set the dollar and expiration limits on the vCC and only the first vendor that charges to it is allow to make subsequent changes. You can even manually close the card before is expires. When I shop at a new online store, especially for a one-time purchase, I do this. Vendors can't make recurring charges to a closed CC.

--
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .

This is *not* Columbia House by karlandtanya · 2016-05-01 06:50 · Score: 1

Negative option exists in varying degrees of 'scammy'.
When I was a kid, my friends and I would join Columbia House or BMG, get our 12-for-a-penny, buy four more, cancel, rinse, repeat.
We were high-school kids and we knew the 'negative option' part of it was BS. But the 16 for the cost of 4 was a good deal.

It was a good deal for the record company, too. The albums we received were 'special' labeled ones--it was obvious they were not the same as you'd get off the shelves at a record store. Our theory was that BMG or Columbia would just run off ten or twenty thousand more than they expected to sell once the machines were set up. Pure profit for them; probably didn't pay the artists either. No way of knowing if this was true; this was just our guess.

Anyhow, there you have it--it was very clear up front what the deal was, we all agreed to it and we all got what we expected.

This surprise negative option--this is sneaky and deceptive. To me it smells fishy, and I know if it smells fishy, don't eat it.
I bought 'USB3' memory sticks from Amazon because they were a good brand at a good price and they were "USB3" sticks.
Oh, in my hurry I didn't read the review--They're USB2, but they work in USB3 ports. Well, hell, all USB2 works in USB3 ports. Oops.
Well, shit. They got me.

Blaming the victim is self-delusion. "They won't get me because I'm smart. Those people were dumb. Or greedy. Or whatever...."
Awareness means knowing I might not smell the next one; the scammers do this all day every day and they're good at it.

How much time and attention do I need to devote to not getting ripped off? It's fucking exhausting. Sometimes the scammers win. Sometimes they miss.
A number of times, the scammers simply get thrown into a wood chipper feet first.

--
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick

Re:Donald Trump will fix this. by gweihir · 2016-05-01 07:27 · Score: 1

Huh? I though he was behind this kind of thing?

--
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.

Libertarian strawmen by Firethorn · 2016-05-01 11:49 · Score: 2

Really, this gets '5 Insightful'?

Libertarians do support deceptive business practices in that they are opposed to all means possible for impeding them. (And while libertarians [lower case "l"] don't support deceptive business practices, they are incoherent about how they should be stopped.)

Okay, given that you did make a difference between the fundy Libertarians and the more moderate libertarians, of which I'm the latter, I'll give you the small-l answer: You don't get rid of the courts or all the police. You show a court(small claims, most likely) that they deceived you and charged you without authorization, and the court rakes them over the coals.

Done.

libertarians aren't anarchists, though some of the Big-L types seem to be more Anarchists trying to rebrand themselves as something not so objectionable.

--
I don't read AC A human right

Re:Libertarian strawmen by digitrev · 2016-05-02 06:17 · Score: 1

So what's the keep the courts & the police from being captured & corrupted? To quote the Non-Libertarian FAQ ,

As far as I know there is no loophole-free way to protect a community against externalities besides government and things that are functionally identical to it.

--
Cynical Idealist
Re:Libertarian strawmen by Firethorn · 2016-05-02 09:19 · Score: 1

So what's the keep the courts & the police from being captured & corrupted? To quote the Non-Libertarian FAQ [raikoth.net] ,
What's keeping them from being captured & corrupted now?
Also, I'm not seeing the connection between your question and what you quoted. That being said, keep in mind that I'm explicitly a moderate libertarian. By no means am I for getting rid of ALL government. I'm for some pretty extreme reforms in some ways, but not getting rid of all government.
As such, I agree with the statement you quote. Matter of fact, the Non-Libertarian FAQ has my type in there:

To many people, libertarianism is a reaction against an over-regulated society, and an attempt to spread the word that some seemingly intractable problems can be solved by a hands-off approach. Many libertarians have made excellent arguments for why certain libertarian policies are the best options, and I agree with many of them. I think this kind of libertarianism is a valuable strain of political thought that deserves more attention, and I have no quarrel whatsoever with it and find myself leaning more and more in that direction myself.
This is me.

--
I don't read AC A human right

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