Day 129: Bad bad bad

If only all new things could be light and fluffy and inconsequential to my life. As pretty much all of them have been. But today I realized I was part of a credit card scam, a very not good, but still new, thing.

When I bought flowers from FTD.com, I got a pop-up at the end asking if I wanted a $20 coupon for my next purchase on FTD. I, of course, clicked yes, and that was it, they said I'd get an email. Which I did, from Reservation Rewards, which I just assumed was the name of FTD's reward program, which every web site seems to have now. Neither the pop-up, nor the email, mentioned that it cost money to enroll in this program.

But when I checked my bank account online, there was a $1 charge from this Reservation Rewards. I did some research and found this blog entry, with dozens of comments from people who fell into the same trap, from varying web sites, only they were charged $10-$12 a month, some of them for a year before they realized it.

I called the company, who knew my address, email, and credit card information, and told them to cancel it and refund me the $1, and to not charge me anything else. There is a class action lawsuit against them in Connecticut, so I cancelled my debit card too, just in case.

I shop online a lot, and am very careful. At first I felt stupid for falling for this, but it just looked like a part of FTD's site, and having never used the site, I thought it was normal. Just a warning to all who shop online to stay away from Reservation Rewards.