C4SxM5

Just wanted to see if anyone has had this problem in the past OR if Ricks2k is aware of it.

I placed an order on a set of diffusors a month or so ago and after my order was completed a link came up saying I can get $10 off on my next order if I sign up w/ for the RESERVATION REWARDS program. All it asked was my name and email addy, NO credit card info, BUT I got my CC statement today and they charged me $9??? WTF??? How did they get my CC info. if I only provided it to RickS2K??? I'm going to call them in the morning because they are closed, but wanted to see if anyone else is aware of this issue?

My CC company will refund the charge back, but this should of never happened and hopefully Ricks2k will delete the link from his website.

Stratocaster

Can you explain this better? You are the second person to say "RESERVATION REWARDS". We never set anything like that up, and we had not heard of it. I though the first e-mail was spam., I guess it was not. The only way that your CC could have been used, if assuming you only entered it once, is that the shopping cart that we used did it. I will look into this.

Thanks

spesrf25

I recall seeing something like that when i've made purchases from Rick's Accessories. I can't remember the specifics. Maybe you guys can make a charge on your website, and see if it comes up for you, then you can see exactly what it is.

C4SxM5

well basically after you finish paying for the item there was a link of some sort that said would you like to get $10 dollars off of your next purchase from ricks2k. i clicked on that link and agreed to recieve emails from reservation rewards and provided them with my name, email addy, and other things, but no CC info. at the end of the form they said i would get an additional $10 off of my next purchase by submitting to them an invoice from ricks2k??? i will try to see if i saved any of there info. but i will be calling them shortly.
thanks

rworne

Oh there's a big thing going on about that. I just read several articles/blogs about it today.

http://adam.rosi-kessel.org/weblog/the_man..._is_a_scam.html

http://www2.unplannedthought.com:8080/arch...cam_artists.php

Best thing is to determine if the link was supplied by Rick's or by some undetected spyware. If it was Rick's, then I guess community outrage should take care of the issue.

Basically they use your email address as a "digital signature" and start charging you $7/mo or more for their emails. They get the CC info from whomever does the processing for your order. The technique is not unlike the slamming techniques used in the past by the telephone marketers.

Several large e-tailers like buy.com and Expedia do this as well.

Stratocaster

The link was supplied by our Shopping cart vendor (we have a shopping cart service that we lease) as a cross promotions benefit. It was something that was done with little communications to us and once we were made aware of it, we opted out. It was not something that we knew about, but the cart vendor tells us that we received notifcation of the change. It was by e-mail and must have been eaten by the spam filters I would guess.

We are in the process of getting a list of our effected customers so we can communicate with them directly.

The first e-mail we got on the subject, looked like a spammer fishing for valid e-mail address. It was a request to refund the "RESERVATION REWARDS" charges. There was no other information in the e-mail that we could use to identify the the sender as a customer. C4SxM5 posting was the first item trace back to being a customer. Lets face it, you post on S2ki.com with a comment about Rick's, then I can safely assume you are a customer, even without your name/order number.

rworne

Wow, I never knew business was this scummy for vendors too.

Opt-out cross promotion deals?

These things should be opt-in.

C4SxM5

i called them earlier today and they gave me some BS about my email addy gave them the right to charge my CC. i told to cancel my service and i will contact my CC company and hopefully everyone else will do the same.

Stratocaster: THANKS for taking care of the issue on your end! ricks2k is still good in my book!

Rick Hesel

I want to chime in on this as well. I was pissed beyond belief when I learned from Jeff that our credit card processing service (we call it the cart service) was offering this as an opt-ot option both for us and our customers. In my book, it's tantamount to theft and we will end it immediatley and refund any charges that were made to our customers without their authorization.

We just won't tolerate this kind of nonsense. I'm sure they'll tell us it''s perfectly legal. That may be the case, but it's also completely unethical and we won't put up with it. If our cart service does not address the problem, we'll get rid of them as soon as we can. They are not the only game in town.

OverBooster

I hate this kind of crap, I know that Ricks was unaware of it and I agree with Rick. I would dump that cart service so fast their heads would spin.