Scam

Yesterday I had an interesting experience that is becoming more and more common. I was scammed. And what’s more it was totally legal. I went on line to renew my newspaper subscription. The opening page comes up and I choose ‘renew my subscription.’ A new page comes up with a big green box that says START. A page comes up to enter all your information including credit card. At first I thought that it was a bit unnecessary as I already have an account. The next page says ‘Congratulations you can now access all these streams of music and video for $5.99/month.’ WTF. I flip out. WTF. What just happened? I immediately recognized the first ad space scam where unsuspecting people who have arrived at this web site will click on the first enticing button and disappear into a new rabbit hole. They had me hook line and sinker. I had even gone down the rabbit hole and given out my credit card info. These guys are good. And I had not a moment of doubt. So I figure I better find out what I have just signed up to. After all $5.99/mo may be OK. The rabbit hole had only just begun.

I start reading the info. Keep in mind here that I had not seen any indication of what I was buying until after I gave my credit card info to ‘The Newspaper’. Overwhelmed with available content but nothing leaps out at me. At some point I recall reading a line about easy to cancel. Just go to the Cancel Subscription button and that’s it. I looked everywhere and could not find a Cancel Subscrition button. However a couple of other scams were now also obvious. The ‘hide the Cancel Subscription’ button scam. I dive down to the greyed out barely legible microscopic text at the bottom of the page. Sometimes this is where it is hidden. Nada. I still couldn’t find it but I did find this piece of interesting text: ‘If you do not cancel this subscription within 5 days the account will roll over into a premium subscription at $59.99/mo.’ Ok these guys are not good, they are scumbags. I decided to call MasterCard and cancel any futher payments to them. The plot thickened.

It turns out that Master Card cannot stop the payment because I have signed a contract thinking I was renewing my newspaper subscription all along the way. I say I will just cancel the card. They say that typically any contractual payments just flip over to any new card. After they identify the account number because only 10 minutes have elapsed since this started he can see where the money has gone and gives me the company name and the email and telephone numbers for them. He says to email and telephone them and cancel the subscription and keep evidence of the communication. Then watch the account and if $59.99 goes out then call VISA back and challenge the charge by presenting the evidence. VISA will then cancel the charge. It will then be up to ‘myonlinememberships.com’ to decide whether to sue for the contract amount but with evidence of cancellation they probably will not.

I am sure it is a huge business picking up contract debt. Cheaper and cheaper as it works down the chain. Rougher and rougher buyers. Most of them are written off because there is no ability to pay. But some might have yield if you shake the tree hard enough.

So with very little hope for the contact info I hang up. I send an email to the address of support@myonlinememberships.com and I call the number. After just a few minutes a woman answers. I have a hard time understanding her and we talked at cross purposes for a bit. I said very clearly the company name and she finds my account and says ‘It is cancelled’. Now I guess I wait a month to make sure the $59.99 doesn’t show up.

I did also receive an email in reply aknowledging the cancellation of subscription. They have to be seen to doing everything by the book as they are entirely legal. However the deception and ambiguity all along the way is so blatant that perhaps someone should go after these types of operations. I would imagine that law enforcement has little appetite. Bigger fish to fry.

Anyway what intrigued me was the absolute blatant in your face trickery to seperate you from your money. Classic con man stuff. As in all polarities the other side has to be seen as having no redeeming features. Dehumanization. The scammers are ‘scam artists’. And their prey are ‘punters’ or even ‘marks’. The wielding of artistry is just as the fencer might wield an epee. From the very first big START button in the middle of the ad box. There was nothing in the ad box to even suggest it wasn’t part of the process to renew your newspaper. But there has to be by law. I look closer and as a subscript in the familiar microscopic greyed out text there is an asterix footnote (how often do you read footnotes) which says ‘find it on contentlists.com’ the name of the company ostensibly advertising on the newspaper website.

Is this behaviour psychopathic? To be so removed from the pain and suffering you might and almost certainly will cause. Vegetarians in a very righteous campaign against the industrial production of meat use these very words. And as Jains would say ‘do you ever think of the pain and suffering you cause by putting out an ant trap. Rats and mice are protected in several countries by the banning of sticky traps for being as we rather centrically say ‘inhumane’. I did note however that my appreciation of the artistry of each level of deception was overruled by my feeling that they are scumbags. There it is: dehumanisation. Now they don’t deserve the same protections of the law that we do. But of course they do and the further artistry of making every detail compliant with the law. Internet law is in its infancy and has a hard time just keeping up with each new technological leap. Just look at AI and the law. OMG. There’s a working life to be had. I have brought this whole matter to the attention of the newspaper and the fraud squad. Undoubtedly this is not the only site they are targetting. Probably hundreds or thousands of other billing sites take ads and dont vet to deeply. Check you bills closely and watch for the repetitive small payments. There are plenty of these where the payments are two or three dollars. Nothing to worry about. Not worth the effort. But add it up over the years and multiply by thousands. It’s a lucrative industry. But I was going to notice $59.99. Probably they could get a few months of fast return seen as better that the longer term profits of the $3.99 crowd.