Shopping for travel on the Internet has become the norm. It offers consumers a direct, convenient and efficient way to comparison shop for the most desirable travel options at the best price for airfare, hotel rates and the like. Travelocity is a popular online travel agency. Recent reports suggest that after completing a travel purchased on Travelocity, consumers may have unwittingly become a paid member of the discount club Savings Ace.
Savings Ace, is one of Adaptive Marketing LLC’s stable of discount membership programs to which Travelocity consumers are unknowingly directed as or just after they complete a transaction. For instance, while making flight reservations, Travelocity customers are invited to click on a "pop up" offering a $20 rebate, which appears to be a nice way for them to recoup the $20 travel booking fee charged by Travelocity. Not so. This is actually a confusing link to Savings Ace, and a pathway for Savings Ace to poach the consumer’s credit card information from Travelocity and begin charging a $19.95 monthly membership fee to the same card account. Scores of consumers have reported being charged multiple $19.95 monthly charges by Savings Ace on their credit cards when they have no knowledge of having enrolled or of what Savings Ace is or why they would want it at that price or at any price. Logically, one would have to make significant use of the Savings Ace coupon program in order to save enough to offset its $19.95 monthly fee. Thus, ironically Savings Ace becomes a very expensive way to possibly save a few dollars. Moreover, Adaptive Marketing, of which Savings Ace is a part, is notoriously good at making it so difficult to get a refund of unwanted membership fees that most people just give up.
Besides the post-transaction enrollment via Travelocity, other primary websites such as the people finder website, My Life, the vitamin discounter, Vitacost.com, and the clothing store site, Chadwicks.com, offer a link to a free, seven-day, trial membership to Savings Ace. Consumers of these sites reported knowingly agreeing to a free trial of the Savings Ace discount and rewards program, but because they did not read the very finest print, they were unaware that unless they cancelled the trial within the seven-day period they would be charged $19.95 to the credit card used on the primary website, without ever directly authorizing Savings Ace to charge them anything.
First, it is critical that Internet consumers carefully check their credit card statements monthly to insure that these parasitic, post-transaction marketeers are not adding unwanted sums to their debt.
Second, if you believe you have a been enrolled in the Savings Ace online membership program without your consent and that based on deception, you have been charged unwanted enrollment and monthly fees for which you did not try or could not get a refund, please contact Meiselman, Denlea, Packman, Carton & Eberz P.C. to discuss your legal rights.