Congratulations, You’ve Been Ripped Off!

Hey, I totally complained about this months ago, and apparently the Senate Commerce Committee read my blog and got right on that shit.

“One Webloyalty employee acknowledged in an e-mail that most of its calls were from members who are questioning charges or want to cancel their membership, while a Vertrue employee had estimated that cancellation calls represent approximately 98 percent of call volume. The companies‘ internal manuals train their call center representatives to answer questions such as, ‘what is this charge?’ or ‘who are you?’”

An internal Vertrue customer survey found that 43 percent of visitors to its “membership center” were trying to find out about “the charge on my credit card that I did not recognize.” Another 44 percent had come to “cancel the program.” A single person showed up to “find out more about my membership benefits.”

Who could have ever imagined that customers wouldn’t appreciate companies secretly handing off their credit card details to totally sketchy third parties for monthly abuse? Seriously, everyone who came up with this scheme, and everyone who went along with it, do the right thing and go to jail. Don’t pass go or collect any more millions of dollars, just report directly to jail. Dicks.