CHECK YOUR BANK STATEMENTS!
 

Everyone check your accounts for charges made by "AP9*SHOPPINGESSENTIAL."

I was just looking over my bank statement online and noticed this charge for the first time, it was for $19.95, just enough for me not to give it a second look before now. I started researching it a little bit just to make sure that it hadn't been charged before, well... It had. 8 more time, since 5/27/2008.

This is apparently a pretty slick little scam operation, they somehow attach this "membership" to your credit card when you make online purchases with certain stores, so far I've read about several places, classmates.com, restaurant.com, vitacost.com, etc.. I got snagged by vitacost apparently.

I called the number to this place and made sure they knew under no uncertain terms that I hadn't given any autorization to them to charge my card and that they were fraudulent (I was pissed). The first person I talked to said that they could only refund the charges for one month, then immediately forwarded me to a supervisor (I didn't even ask) he then said that they would refund the other 8 charges, obviously these people knew they were caught..

Fucking scam artists. :mad:

I also looked them up on the BBB and they don't exist, just a full on scam operation.

God, I hate that shit. That would piss me off, too. Have you reported this to your credit card company or to authorities?

wow i've never heard of this....I'll def be checking my bank statements a little more closely

I called my banks 800 number and they actually got the number to the company for me. My card company's original response was that the could only take care of claims up to 60 days old. I know if I had gone to my bank, they would have taken care of it, so I figured I'd try to get my money back myself and call this shit hole of a company.

I wanted to file with the BBB, but like I said, the company didn't come up in their system, so that was a little difficult to accomplish.

You definitely should, I know I'll be watching mine even more closely now, that's $179.55 just stolen from my account. The really slick thing about it is that they switched up the dates on some of the charges and it was never more than $19.95 so I never noticed it to be anything out of the ordinary..

thanks for the info. The smart scams take just a little at a time from people so we don't notice. I had an issue with people getting my ATM card number some how. One time there was a large purchase at an autozone in Los Angeles, and three $100 ATM withdraws in San Diego. The bank was cool about reversing the charges, but keep an eye on your accounts like WNRacing said.

To be honest, I don't really pay that much attention to my statements. I know I will now. If that happens to me, I'll be a shitstorm in someone's worst nightmare.

Yeah i look at mine all the time, every since one of my friends had his identity stolen. It was a big hassle for him. It probably took 6months to a year to sort it all out. The guys opened new creditcard accounts and also got into his bank account. Just over Christmas this guy i work with had all his money from his bank account taken over 2Gs. The bank fixed that right away though.

yeah,def be careful. i look up everything, because sometimes a company goes through an intermediary to charge your CC.

btw, i got snagged by the free credit report dot com ppl. apparently what those three singing guys don't tell you is that you are charged a monthly fee of like $15 for credit card monitoring. snuck past me for three months. managed to cancel it and get the money back.

I hate those damn commercials. I would like for those 3 fags to die of the black plague.

Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee credit report dot com I should have seen this coming at me like an atom bomb! hahahaha yeah and the songs get stuck in your head.

bwahh i got those damn songs stuck in my head for life i hate it

Crap man... digging around online, turns out people have been reporting this for 4 years! all the way back to 2005!

it appears multiple class action lawsuits and thousands of complaints and reports have done nothing to stop these criminals.

another one for people in illinois...



how the HELL are these people not in Jail??????????

I wish I could tell you man, all I know is that if my money is not back in my account by Friday night then I'll be contacting my bank and a lawyer as well.

A few months back my identity was stolen, credit cards and other shit. Its a pain in the ass to reverse the damage and takes a lot of time and patience. Fuck ID theives suck my balls!

My fiance tells me I'm paranoid because every time I use my debit card, I cover up the pad when I type my PIN number in. I also get really annoyed when I shop in places where I'm not a 'regular' and they don't ask to see my ID when I pay with my debit card.

Luckily, my father keeps a close eye on my finances and he's got a keen eye for things. Hopefully, when he checks my accounts if he notices anything, he'll ask me. He knows that on my credit card statement, if there is a charge from somewhere other than American Muscle, that he needs to ask me about it. :p

one of the things i found out, if you use an ATM you should wait about 30 seconds after your transaction is completle before leaving, becuase the Atm can keep your card number and all its info for about that long, and if someone were to slide a blank card in, it would transfer the information to that card and then the person will just have to use the card as a credit card instead of debit.. got 100+ stolen in gas this way, but the O/C fees were around 150+ and the bank only paid for the 100+ stolen so i was out another 150...:mad:

**Update**
 

All of my money was refunded last night, I guess I got my point across.

Guys, just beware.. I've read about other cases that were much more severe that didn't end up like this.

WHY not post the phone number?