This seems like yet another reason not to give gift certificates/gift cards. It always sucks when a well meaning person gives you one for someplace you wouldn't set foot in. Scamming people into signing up for something they don't want is even worse.

Yikes! Chargeback time!

Shit, I bought some gift certs a few months ago and again yesterday. Crap, I don't want to deal with this, I guess I could just file a charge back.

i've bought certificates for restaurant.com in the past, and have seen no unauthorized charges. i'd be willing to bet that OP hasn't either..... sounds to me like she clicked on a "special offer" or some such and didn't read what she was getting herself into.

this is a perfect example of why you should read carefully what you're agreeing to AFTER a transaction is complete, and nothing more.

I'm actually amazed she managed to get that far on their crappy site! R.com has, quite possibly, the SLOWEST website on the Net. It can take you about a half hour just to purchase a print a certificate. This has been that way with them since inception. It has been brought to their attention repeatedly, and their solution? Clear your cookies! what a joke

@dlynch: I have also bought their certificates on several occations. I have never paid for anything extra beside the certificates.

A description of what triggered the fee:

[www.ripoffreport.com]

@dlynch: I've had scammy services appear on my credit card before, and they weren't related to anything I purchased. I wonder if this is a case of correlation is not causation.

@dlynch: yep, reading the reports on ripoffreports.com make this even more clear. surely we have all seen these "save $10 on your next purchase" crap deals - they come up after purchasing movie tickets and all other sorts of things. OP clicked on one of these, agreed to its terms (and the charges) and is now (literally) paying the price. it's not fair to blame restaurant.com for anything here - this is the result of OP's lack of e-sophistication and attention to detail, not a scam per se.

no different than a 419 scam in my eyes - tracey might as well have sent a nigerian scammer a check.

I bought certificates from this site last month and for the last two years and they have never billed this charge to me.

I better check my statement...I purchased some last month as well.

I'm betting there was an opt-out checkbox buried somewhere in the 9 verification pages you have to go through to buy something...

@dlynch: Oh what the hell?!?

Good job blaming the OP. Good job. "It didn't happen to me, hence, it couldn't possibly have happened to the OP, they must be a mouth-breather." The plural of anecdote is, if you'll excuse the extraordinary triteness of this, not data. Go read the Ripoff Report link and tell me just how much of life you feel you should you spend reading fine-print (if it's actually even in the fine print) when you just want to buy a product. Not a service, not any sort of ongoing agreement, just a simple purchase of a simple product. A 'here's the price, this is what you pay' sort of a deal. Except you don't, you secretly get charged an extra monthly fee. By a different company. Who won't readily remove it on request. At what point do we as online consumers dig our heels in and say that enough is enough?

Bah. Bad consumer. Back under your rock!

@dlynch: True, but often these scammy services are added on by default and you have to uncheck them to prevent being charged. Oh, and the check box to unsubscribe to the services is small and often hidden somewhere, sometimes under the "submit" button. So unless we can post a screenshot of how this was presented, I wouldn't blame the victim just yet.

I just bought 2 GCs from there yesterday - will keep an eye out. thanks consumerist!

@morganlh85: It's quite possible. What really brought this to my attention was that there's a pattern of ongoing complaints about this on ripoffreport, and the fact they all seemed to discover the "service" only through their credit card statements, not through any contact with the company.

They also describe difficulties in getting the membership canceled, which isn't a good sign. Even if, through the miracle of fine print, this is all perfectly legit, it doesn't seem like a very savory business practice.

I know what happened. During the signup/checkout process, it directs to a page where they have a checkbox or a button or whatnot to sign up with the aforementioned service. It's FREE (30-day trial, $14.95 a mo. after that).

I know this because when the 80%-off deal hit and The Consumerist linked up to it, I took the dive and got people some X-mas gifts. I had to go through the process and remember ACTUALLY READING the shit on the page, and I unchecked/hit "No Thanks" to that, and continued on to my 80%-off goodness.

Silly consumer! It seems to me that those who frequent this site should know better than to click willy-nilly like that.

Aaaaaaaaaand yet another company gets added to countless Consumerist readers "Do Not Do Business With" lists. Is it really worth it, scammy companies? (Actually, it probably is. They probably will still victimize more than enough people for it to be worthwhile.)

I wish they had as much trouble sleeping at night with the weight of their scamminess on their shoulders as most innocent insomniacs do, but I'm not holding my breath.

And on a slightly more directly relevant note, can't the OP do a chargeback on the $14.95 fee? Somehow I think that if the charges keep getting reversed they'll find a way to get that manager out of his eternal meeting and give her a call back.

My memory of buying gift certificates from Restaurant.com includes a step where an offer like Shopping Essentials is made. The accept button is huge and the decline button is just a link in normal text below it.

So I'm not trying to blame the OP as it sounds like the OP unintentionally accepted the offer.

@theirishscion:
all due respect, i have purchased the item in question and have seen the screens that led to OP being charged. it's a standard "click here for $10 back and sign up for our monthly service if you don't cancel within the first 30 days" deal. it's certainly not news to anyone who has done any purchasing online over the last 5 years, as movietickets.com has used the same "promotion" after purchase for as long as i can remember. in fact, if you search movietickets.com on ripoffreport, you'll see scads of folks who fell for the same line tracey did. you can see a more detailed explanation pasted below, from the ripoffreports link provided in the article.

i certainly have sympathy for consumers who have been wronged, but this is not one of those instances. OP fell victim to a common danger on the internet, clicking on a banner after her transaction was complete. the fact that she didn't clearly read or understand what she was getting herself into is noone's fault but her own. blaming restaurant.com or movietickets.com is removing responsibility from where it truly lies - with the consumer.

from the link:
______
From: Lisa Frazier
Date: Saturday, March 29, 2008 12:55 PM
Subject: RE: banner ad scam->3/29/2008 12:55:16 PM

Hello,
At the end of your order there was an offer to receive $10 cash back for
completing a survey and becoming a member with Shopping Essentials. For
completing this survey you have agreed to let Restaurant.com give Shopping
Essentials your information, including the credit card information that was
used in your order. If you do not wish to continue your membership with
Shopping Essentials after your 30-day free trial, you will need to contact
Shopping Essentials before you get charged the $14.95 monthly membership
fee, which will start 30 days after the completion of your survey, which is
also the same date as your Restaurant.com order. Shopping Essentials number
is 888-999-0564.

I'm going to join the chorus here and state that I've been using restaurant.com for years (and multiple purchases in the last couple of months) and have not ever had this happen.

The "special offers" offered after purchase are and have been a staple of internet shopping. Consumer is at fault.

@Plates:

Like my wife and I getting a $25 card for a steak joint. Not only will that not buy a couple of meals, but we're vegetarians. It's the thought that counts though. I think.

@Chris Walters: it's not a matter of opting out, it's a separate transaction that takes place after the primary transaction is complete - a "click here to receive $10 back for completing the survey" deal. savory - no? new - hardly.

@Plates: The Restaurant.com "gift certificates" aren't really GC so much as discount vouchers: $25 off the bill if over $35 in food is purchased.

I've been purchased about a hundred over the past five years. Most restaurateurs are happy when I say that I saw their offer and it made me want to come in.

proflowers.com does the same thing.

was it auto or did she not check what she clicked on after the transaction like on buy.com??

OK...so I just used this site, as I have in the past quite a bit. IF you find a good coupon code, it's been pretty handy to have in your bag when you are out running and want a quick bite at a local place.

from their site....there is an offer for some kind of 'free popcorn' or somthing...it seems like if you take that offer....

you are signing up....

>

Do ya have to really read this? yeah

Can ya be fooled? Yeah.

But honestly, at this point on the internet, ya should kind of KNOW there is NO such thing as a "free offer" for anything after ya buy something on line.

NOT looking to blame anyone...jsut pointing out what's there if you look

ooops it wouldn't post the quote from the other site, but it IS pretty clear you are signing up for something if you take the 'FREEBIE"

The ownership of the program in question is Adaptive Marketing LLC (www.adaptivemarketing.com) and they manage membership programs.

There are a few of these companies that have a variety of programs from auto clubs, discount clubs, ID Theft products of all sorts, Credit Monitoring, points, rewards, ect. These businesses have been around about 30 years using direct mail and got into the internet around 2001.

What they do is affinity marketing. They use another persons brand affinity and tap into their customer base. They provide post-transactional revenue when people accept the offers and join their programs in the form of bounties and commissions.

They never have you uncheck to opt-out of joining because they are doing something the industry calls datapass. They need an explicit click to join and usually need you to fill something out (like the survey) or more like an identifier (city of birth, ect.) to prove to the attorney generals (who do act on this when they break the rules) that they had permission to transfer the billing data from the site (movietickets.com) to them for billing.

Honestly OP clicked on an offer for $10 off the purchase she just made and then clicked something on the offer page to join.

Do they optimize their pages to make sure they get the highest conversion rate? Yes.

Also many consumers take advantage of these offers and believe they will remember to cancel during the trial and they will get free money.

These companies make their money off the consumers who believe either:
1. Free money exists
2. They will take advantage of the trial (and forget)
3. People who actually use the discounts and like the clubs

My wife was a victim of this scam. Even worse, she used our debit card. However, she was able to get reimbursement from Shopping Essentials. Yes, there is an option to get a free $10 off or something like that in the purchase process. Choosing this automatically signs you up for this scam of a company. I believe buy.com does something similar. I have sent nasty grams to both for being associated with these cam companies without response.

You guys really ought to print a retraction/correction - this one isn't the site's (Restaurant.com) fault, it's some advert afterwards that she clicked on - they didn't sign her up for anything. I know we're all about not blaming the OP, but sometimes it's merited.

@theirishscion: It's merited - now this site has a bad write up on a well read blog because of someone else's mistake (nothing to do with anything Restaurant.com did but present an ad), that they then blamed on an innocent party. It's not this product, it's not this site, and it's something that she *should* have read the fine print on, especially when it's one of those scammy looking ads.

In this case, she's the bad consumer, not dlynch.

Wow, I really like restaurants.com. It's sad that the Consumerist is making this sound like they're the ones scamming her and not Shopping Essentials. Shouldn't someone savvy enough to read the Consumerist be smart enough to read the details to a "FREE" offer that takes you to a different site?

@coren: I agree. I love restaraunt.com and use the certificates at least once a month.

@randombob: Ding ding ding, we have a winner. I bought these gift certificates as well. They were on fatwallet with an 80% off coupon code. Near the end of the sign up there was a checkbox to get additional money off for signing up for the service. She clicked it (perhaps not realizing it) and then never cancelled the service.

Call Shopping Essentials, ask to cancel, and request a credit. They're generally very good about crediting back these types of charges.

This is why I avoid doing business on such websites. I don't have the patience to read through page after page of verifications and shady deal offers that I might mistakenly click (or forget to unclick). Therefore, I just sick with shopping on well-known big business websites and suffer paying a little bit more in restaurants or whatever

Honestly, I haven't even made it out of college yet, and I'm trying not to accidentally ruin my credit on the internet. I am not a consumer blamer, but I hope that after this experience some of these consumers will weigh the benefits of that $25 off your next restaurant purchase a little harder.

@dlynch: My God, he's solved it!

@randombob: You're assuming that this company was also honest enough to honor the opt-out. Silly consumer!

For all those saying it isn't restaurant.com's fault, since she did have to accept the offer...

Sure, it isn't savvy consumerism to click on something like that, but that doesn't make the websites that have such pop-ups squeaky clean in my eyes.

It is still the website's choice to allow such shady marketers to work with their company. I think they should be called on it. Those ads are purposefully designed to prey on less-educated consumers and you don't see the problem with that?

Any site that contracts with such advertisers should bear part of the blame. You are sometimes judged by the company you keep.

I've bought certificates from restaurant.com a few times, no problems. Like everyone else is saying, I'm pretty sure this is one of those post checkout "Save $10 on next purchase" kind of deals.

Vista Print did that to me: added me to some marketing scam where I was billed $14 a month. Surprise surprise I never received ANY literature in the mail nor emails.

I called them up and was very firm but nice with the poor schmuck who has to take the calls all day long. He reimbursed me for all the months--I'm ashamed to admit--they'd taken my cash.

Add me to the list of people who've bought restaurant.com certificates and had no negative issues. This was just one of those post-purchase "deals" that most of us opt not to do. Live & learn.

Vistaprint, the online printing service, does the same thing. My wife got scammed by them as well. I only discovered it this week when pulling together my year end credit card statements and noticed multiple charges from Shopping Essentials, totalling a shocking $175. What we got for this, I have no idea. Shame on me for not catching this on my statements sooner. But this is a complete scam. I've spoken to the company that apparently runs "Shopping Essentials" and was assured I would get a rebate. I also sent a very strongly worded e-mail to the CEO of Vistaprint and got a response back from someone within the company within 24 hours telling me that I would get a refund. We will see. It's odd to me how this companies can be so short sighted--do they really think that customers feel this is a good deal? Do they really think that customers are aware of what they will be charged each month? And do they really think that customers will ever use their services again afte discovering they've been duped?

@bmcgann:

And by the way, it's not at all clear that you'll be charged for this. No one in their right mind would sign up for this service. I don't even know what it is.

@bmcgann: I got my refund. I hope you do too. I got scammed same way.

More praise for restaurant.com. I've bought TONS of GC's on their site. When they have their 70% or 80% off sales it's a staggering good deal and its frankly throwing money away to eat at any restaurant that participates and pay full price.

I have never had a problem, and their customer service is fabulous. You have a year to use the GC, and if the restaurant goes out of business, before you use the GC (within a year) they will credit you.

I cashed in United Airline miles for a credit on restaurant.com and when I tried to redeem, no discount, (i.e. a $25.00 credit paid for a $25.00 certificate, not $10.00 like typical, or even less, when sales). I was so upset, I contacted United Airlines who (big suprise) would do nothing. I contacted restaurant.com who agreed to full refund the credit and restore all my miles, even though it was truly United who had misreprented what the miles would 'buy'.

They are a class act in every interaction I've ever had.

@SunnyLea: Like many sites, they likely sell advertising rights through a broker and do not design or specifically approve the individual ads that appear.

I would not be suprised if, with enough feedback (not hysterical claims of scamming and victimhood), we see the site eliminate this particular advertiser.

@dlynch: I remember seeing that after I bought my gift cirt... I mean discounts. Good thing I read everything before I click okay!

After reading this, I checked my statement and sure enough, I had 2 charges from "Shoppingessen*****." I had noticed the charges earlier, but they randomly coincided with some travel I had done and I thought they were for items related to that. Anyway. I tried calling the 888 number for Shopping Essentials. It was actually very easy to cancel (well, we'll see, I guess) via an automated menu, only 2 levels into the menu. However, I then tried to speak with a human to get the charges reversed. The rep said that my membership agreement, "which you agreed to," allowed only the reversal of the most recent charge (for this month, which has not even appeared on my statement yet). I told her that if they did not refund the other charges I was going to dispute the charges with my credit card company. She said I was free to do that, gave me her rep number, and ended the conversation.

I've not yet contacted Restaurant.com, I'm going to wait and see if Citi takes care of the disputed charges. If they don't, I'll call Restaurant.com and see what they can do.

For the record, I would consider myself savvy, and as a rule I never click on surveys or post-sale offers. I don't believe I intentionally did so here. I obviously clicked on SOMETHING, though. I just have no idea what it was, and it definitely was unintentional. I don't think anyone should be blaming the OP here.

@coren:

"nothing to do with anything Restaurant.com did but present an ad"

Well, clearly they 'allowed' this advertiser access to the credit card information used on their own site. So, I'd say that restaurant.com certainly is dealing in 'shady advertising' at the very least.