Credit Card Scam: "Reservation Rewards"

There is a reason that your inbox gets flooded with spam, and it's not because everyone is an impotent, poorly-hung, anxious, depressive, small-breasted person begging to help out a Sudanese millionaire stow away his money in their bank account. It's because people actually fall for that digital sleight of hand. For those of us that see the hook poking out from the worm and keep on swimming, there are more intricate nets waiting to scoop us out and shake us upside down until the change falls from our pockets -- the most recent one I've come across (by way of falling into it) comes from "Reservation Rewards."

Maria was doing my accounting for Jan '08 to now, which involves an astronomical number of credit card transactions, so it was no surprise that the repeated monthly charge for a mere $12 to "Reservation Rewards" had consistently snuck past me:



Maria smartly realized that I had no idea what that charge was or why it was recurring. I Googled the listed phone number and found many other blogs reporting that others had been duped by the fraudulent company for as little as $9 and up to $12.

They fish your information when you make other online purchases (in my case, a movietickets.com purchase, so that site can go and piss right off) explaining that you actually did sign up for the program, probably via an unnoticed check mark in a pop-up window.

While others reported problems canceling (their postings were older), I called the number and explained that I never signed up and that I wanted to cancel and get a full refund. They didn't even question it, said they would refund me the money within four business days and send email confirmation (we'll see if they do), thank you very much have a nice day. It was the operator who told me I signed up on Movietickets.com (bastards) and that was that.

Lesson learned, now EVERYONE should check their statements for the "Reservation Rewards" bill (also appears as "Web Loyalty") and if you have it call the number shown here and ask for refund:


(click to see full-size)

I'm curious to see if this happened to anyone else, or if I'm the only one who needs to pay better attention to the monthly statements.