Are You Kidding Me??!!

On line shopping…..we all do it, and we all agree that it is safe.  SSL encryption keeps our transactions safe……right?? Well, not if the companies we are purchasing from are doing something that is, let’s say, not in our best interest.  OK, you are looking to purchase something and you go to a trusted site like Buy.com, Orbitz.com, Fandango.com or any other from a list of hundreds of other sites.  Voila, you find what you are looking for and at a bargain price.  Great!!  You then add it to your shopping cart and proceed to check out.  During the process, though,  you are presented with an add which is offering, among other things, a coupon.  Along with a bunch of legal jargon, there really is nothing else there, except a field asking for your email address, so you think “what’s the harm?, I’ll just give them my junk email address, plus I just want to purchase this item.”  Now there is an option on this add to opt out but it is not very obvious, so being in a rush, you just enter your email address, and proceed.  The checkout goes flawlessly from there and you receive your object a week later at the bargain price.  You made a great deal.  Well a few months now go by, and one night (while bored), you decide to check your bank statements and to your bewilderment, you notice a monthly charge of $12 on your statement that you have no idea what it is for.

Well, when you made that purchase and filled in your email address, you gave the web site (Buy.com, Orbitz.com, etc) permission to give your personal information, including your credit card info to a post transaction marketing company such as WebLoyalty.com, Vertrue.com or Affinion.com to mention a few.  These are companies in which e-commerce sights PAY to watch what you are clicking on when visiting their sights and feeding the information back to them and if you have an account with them, which you now do, you will receive offers from this company, such as deals and coupons.  This is done without your knowledge.  Now, in all fairness, when you were on the advertisement pop up when checking out, if you had read all the legal jargon, you would have seen that, by filling in your email address, you gave them the permission to make this charge to your credit card.  My problem with this, is that the opting out option was obscure, at best. Plus who reads all that stuff anyway.  It may not be a bad idea to start, at least, glancing at the legal jargon. This is a direct quote from Buy.com’s Privacy Policy…….

“We may also share your personally identifiable information with third parties who provide services to us, our customers and web site visitors. Those third parties include authorized contractors, temporary employees and consultants and other companies working with us (collectively, “agents”). Where we believe it to be appropriate (in our sole discretion), we will ask our agents not to disclose or use your personal information for purposes other than to provide services to you or Buy.com.”

These statement are similar on all the other major e-commerce sights.  Basically, this $12 charge is legit and there is nothing you can do about.  However, according to CNET (who originally posted a comprehensive story on the internet), the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee has taken this seriously and is now taking what started as a “preliminary inquiry” into these companies (WebLoyalty, Vertrue, Affinion, etc), and has now turned it into a “full blown” investigation. In my opinion, this is a scam.

I took the liberty of checking two of these companies out with the Better Business Bureau and there scores where not good.  To see WebLoyalty’s score, click HERE……To see Vertrue’s score, click HERE.  It is not good.

Bottom Line……although these e-commerce sights are very handy, and the prices may be very good, it is always a good idea to check out what is stated in their EULA’s (End User’s License Agreement), and their Privacy Policy’s.  As boring as it may be, I always (well, maybe not always) read them and have even found some startling things from some sights, like loading malware, specifically spyware, onto your computer.  Caution needs to be taken.  And most importantly, always take your time when checking out, making sure that all your i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed.  Do not offer any additional information to an add, and if you get yourself stuck then back out of the transaction completely.

This is a serious problem and hopefully this will be stopped.  Use Caution!!!

Your thoughts??