November 21, 2008
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News: Trilegiant Ripping People Off.
Many credit card consumers have been complaining about Trilegiant ripping them off lately. Typically, they offer people a $10 credit to their credit card accounts. What they try to hide from them, however, is the little fine print suggesting that the card holder doesn't cancel the secret membership they've just been enrolled in, they will be dismayed when they receive the next several credit card statements.
The first surprise will be an unexpected $119.99 charge on their next credit card statement for a membership into Trilegiant's useless ‘Great Fun" club (Some fun!). It gets worse, next. From that point on, these hapless credit card owners will be nailed for another $129.99 for every following month. Not sure how these people escaped prison so far but, they have been nailed for heavy fines.
Not surprisingly, the credit card's issuing bank will take no liability for this rogue company. Trilegiant of Norwalk, Connecticut is a subsidiary of Cendant Corp. It's perplexing to think that such a respectable company as Cendant would have anything to do with such underhanded practices.
Trilegiant has had several brushes with consumer authorities across the nation through the years. Marketing and running countless memberships to useless discount clubs such as Great Fun and lying about big savings on entertainment, travel, etc. Nobody wants ‘em. The Better Business Bureau and other authorities have hosted countless complaints about them. Just recently, in fact, Trilegiant was nailed for a $25 million class action suit for their sleazy methods of sneakily charging people's credit card accounts by surprise. Back in 2006 attorneys general around the land filed suits against them for these unscrupulous business practices and Trilegiant was fined another $14.6 million.
So, the bottom line is to alert your associates to watch out for them and keep reporting them for everything they do that is misleading. Always call your credit card support and lodge an official complaint. If enough people get involved, there may arise a class action suite that is punitive enough to bankrupt them. At the very least, they may be placed on the credit card association's ‘black list' and issued a ‘no trespassing' notice.