Consumer Blog

Did you know that if you buy something from a company on the web, it may claim the right to share your credit card or bank account number with a "partner" site that could then bill you for merely clicking a "trial offer" popup -- even though you didn't give any money, or write a check or share your credit or debit card number with the second "partner" firm? Yes, Virginia, that first site may enroll you in a "club" that has no benefits worth writing home for, and that club may charge your card for stuff you don't want and don't need, and that club will then even claim you somehow forfeited your right to cancel. Today, former Minnesota Assistant Attorney General Prentiss Cox,  who brought important cases against club firms like Memberworks (now re-born as Vertrue) and now a clinical professor of consumer law at the University of Minnesota Law School, will explain these rip-offs at an important hearing of Chairman Jay Rockefeller's (D-WV) Senate Commerce Committee. The hearing on what Prentiss calls "pre-acquired account telemarketing" and other Internet scams is called Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and Their Impact on American Consumers.  Previous blog has more details (click "read more" for links).