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Consumer Alert: Extra Charges On Your Credit Card

Reporting
Yvonne Zanos

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―

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Has your credit card sprung a leak?

If you don't check your credit card charges carefully these days, unauthorized charges could be draining your account and you may never know.

I recently warned consumers about membership fees that were turning up on some people's credit cards.

These were membership fees for clubs people didn't know they joined and didn't know they were paying for.

Many of you called to say you had been slammed with these charges too.

"I think this is a scam and I'm telling everyone I know." said Kathleen Hirt of South Park.

For Kathleen, it all started when her husband sent her flowers back in November.

He ordered them on line at ProFlowers. Total cost? About $47.00 or so he thought, but that was before Kathleen noticed monthly charges for $14.95 for something called Easy Saver.

There were six months of charges.

"It was under Easy Saver," explained Kathleen, "which I mistakenly thought was Easy Pass which we have and I didn't think anything of it."

But when Kathleen called to question these charges, she was told her husband had signed up for a membership club when he ordered her flowers from ProFlowers.

"My husband said he never signed up for it," Kathleen said, "but the customer service rep said, 'Oh he did,' and she argued with me and would not give me the money back on it."

Kathleen was able to cancel her membership but not before she says she paid more than $100 in membership fees and she still doesn't know what kind of membership she supposedly had.

She says she never received any club information to know what kind of savings.

But wait! It gets worse.

"I'm mad," said Rosemarie Pavlik of New Kensington. "I'm furious."

Rosemarie says she opened her Discover card last month and found charges for two membership clubs – AtHomeRewards.com for $14.95 a month and here's Easy Saver again for another $14.95 a month.

"When I called them they said to me, 'You purchased something over the internet,'" said Kathleen, but the companies could not or would not tell Rosemarie what she bought to trigger the membership fees.

Rosemarie said she can't figure out what it could have been.

"They told me you, 'Signed up for it.' I said, 'I did not sign up for it.'"

Both companies agreed to cancel Rosemarie's memberships but refused to refund her money and to add insult to injury, when she opened her Blair Catalogue credit card, there's another one - $14.95.

"I sent emails to all my friends about what happened [with] Blair and Discover and they said, 'I checked my bill and I got charged by them, too.'"

Your best protection is to check your credit card charges carefully.

These kinds of membership clubs were sued in the past by Attorneys General around the country.

The Attorney General wants you to take the time to make a formal complaint and demand your money back.

We were able to get refunds for Kathleen and Rosemarie but when you call, be armed with the knowledge that just because they say you signed up doesn't make it so.

This being Mother's Day weekend, Proflowers did give us a statement saying they didn't want customers fooled.

"Customers can cancel at any time and we have a no questions asked refund policy," they said.

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