Kingdom Keys Bookmarking Blog

Buried in pages of legalise terms of service a not-so-customer-friendly clause could have you trapped with a recurring subscription credit card charge.

In this day and age of transparency and openness some internet vendors resort to trickery to build themselves a captive customer base.

You would think this would be the hallmark of fly-by-night tricksters who will disappear shortly but the practice has been uncovered with reputable well-established vendors.

When you take up membership to a service on the internet you usually receive an email prior to expiration to offer you to renew the service for another period. If you do nothing the service lapses - end of story.

Some smart lawyers have made their mark with some companies by convincing them to take the opposite view. The service is renewed automatically on expiration unless you specifically cancelled it before the expiration date. Hidden in paragraph after paragraph of terms and conditions is a nasty statement that spells out the practice.

Not exactly your "money back guarantee" type of approach. In fact it is exactly the opposite. They grab your money for a second term without asking you if you benefited from their service in the first instance. This is deception by stealth.

Fortunately you can dispute a charge on your credit card statement with your bank. They will always ask first if you have made contact with the vendor to cancel the transaction. When you explain the policy of "charge first, let you discover you have forfeited your right later" the bank will investigate.

Finally you might consider making your credit card details invalid by cancelling your card before the expiry date and taking your business to another provider. Banks themselves will re-issue your card with no questions asked and slap you with a renewal fee.

The issue is that so many websites and vendors might keep your records on file and might suddenly issue a charge as explained above. On rare occasions those sales records have been compromised and some crooks have gone on a spending spree at the expense of unwitting consumers. Banks did back-pedal to reverse the damage but if you are unlucky to be caught in that abuse it is a worry and inconvenience you can do without.

Despite all the doom and gloom talk, internet purchases hit new highs year after year. Big names like Amazon, EBay and PayPal have their business model at stake. Banks welcome all that new activity. So everybody tries to maintain the status quo. Identity theft is happening but if you have been spared that nonsense then for you it does not exist.

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