Reservation Rewards aka WebLoyalty – Problem Solved

Recently I’ve got $10 charge from company called “Reservation Rewards” …
I’ve seen this company before in one of those “Use your chance to get $20” with really long explanation that hides the fact you have to subscribe to “Reservation rewards” for $12/month in order to get those $20. But I was very patient first time I saw this ad, I noticed this hidden subscription, noticed checkbox that was prechecked for me and since then carefully hidden subscriptions like this. So here is the story about Reservation Rewards subscription with happy end.

The beginning

So I’ve got this $10 charge on my debit card (which means afaik I can’t rollit back). The bank gave me their number which of course was “Temporarily unavailable” with promise to return back to live soon. I changed the card number, but I still have questions:

• How they obtained my card number if I didn’t use it for a long-long-long time?
• What is typical practice of dealing with situations like this? I understand my nerves and time do not worth those $10, but companies like RR will keep getting money from other people. Do google search and find more people charged this way.

So, mates be really careful when you expose your card in the internet. And finally here are a few lessons I’ve learned from this:

• Use your card number as infrequently as possible. A good solution would be using Paypal or Google checkout whenever you can
• Do not use debit cards, use credit card instead. Your chances to get your money back will be a bit better
• Periodically change your card number. If your card is compromised your bank will ba happy to replace your card. I don’t know about other banks but mine (SunTrust) reacted immediately – they blocked the card and issued new one.
• Check your card charges periodically and make sure you understand and clearly remember each charge.

The end

This is the real power of word!! Two days after I wrote the original post about Reservation Rewards I’ve got comment to my post from RR Customer Service Director Ms. Mary O’Reilly. I immediately called the phone number provided in the message (1-800-732-7031) and from the second attempt was able to talk to CS representative. The representative was very kind and she immediately canceled this account in reservation rewards. She also promised to issue refund when I asked about that. I’ll write about the refund when I get it.

So here are my new thoughts about the situation:

• The Reservation Rewards Consumer Affairs and Customer Service are doing really great job! For now I don’t know any other company that reacts so quickly and so professionally to blog posts.
• RR really needs such department and the department has to keep working hard as Reservation Reward and WebLoyalty reputation is really poor for now. Search for “Reservation Rewards” in google or any other search engines and find how many people are complaining in anger about such subscription practice.
• RR, sorry, but I still don’t like the way you subscribe people :( It’s very simple to change the text next to the “YES” button so it will say “Buy clicking on YES button I confirm that agree to be charged for $10 monthly for receiving discounts from Reservation Rewards which is not related to your last purchase”. Well, most probably this will cut your profits by 99%, but your karma will get way better!!

Postscriptum

Today I’ve got my $10 back. Hhoorraayy! Please make sure you mention refund when you are canceling this service, you won’t be offered. BTW, the refund came despite the credit card was already locked – very interesting to know it is possible to return money to blocked card.

PostPostScriptum

One year after I posted this post webloyalty started spamming my blog. Thanks to akismet their comments got quickly filtered out, but overall my impression of this company got even worse – in addition to more then doubtful subscription process they appeared to be spammers :(

Good luck!