[EMBARASS-ON] Cancelling porn subscription

Frostozuna

So apparently last night my 16 year old brother was jonesing for some porn. He went to a site and used my credit card to buy their $1 3-day trial deal, I guess thinking that I wouldn't notice the $1 missing from my card.

He comes up to me today and confesses everything - he was planning on grabbing whatever he could, then would cancel the trial subscription before the 3 days was up, except the online cancellation wasn't working (of course), and he even called them to cancel over the phone, but they dont seem to have any records of the trial subscription. I checked my bank statement online and there is no charge from them yet, completed or pending.

I was pretty pissed off at first, but happy that he at least came to me before the trial ended and the monthly wallet raping began. Essentially I have until Tuesday, May 15 2:00 GMT to get this shit cancelled before they charge me $35, and it's really looking like they have everything set up to make it as hard as possible to cancel (it took forever to even find a fucking number to call)

Any ideas?

Bitstream

You know, there's always the possibility that they don't plan on charging you the fee, and they were just angling to get your cc number. You might want to call the card company and have them watch your account.

If it is legit, I'm not really sure what to do. You may have to resort to a higher authority. Does the Better Business Bureau cover porn companies?

Frostozuna

The porn site itself isn't on the BBB, but they guys they use for billing are on there.

What should I say to my bank to pre-emptively prevent this, if that's at all possible?

Szechuanosaurus

Just call them up, tell them that you used your card to try out a $1 trial subscription to a porn site and you want to cancel before the trial runs out but now the company who own the site are saying they don't have any record of your details. I'm sure they can take it from there. They might put a freeze on your card for internet related transactions for a month or so or something - maybe call you to authorise payments for a bit.

You probably don't want to tell them that your brother used the card because then it gets into that whole fraud situation and the card belongs to the bank, not you, so technically they can prosecute your brother even if you don't want to. Just puff up your chest and make the phone call, the guy at the help desk doesn't give a crap if you were surfing for porn and if he does, he can judge you on his lunch break not while he's on the clock helping you out.

Sarcastro

^ Yup. You can cancel the subscription through the Credit Card folks rather than the site. I had this same situation happen with a houseguest of mine. The CC people had no probs cutting off the site from making transactions to the card.

Decius

Try to find out what other information they required from your brother to sign up. I bought some Girls Gone Wild crap for a friend (lazy bastard couldn't learn how to get this stuff for free) and they automatically placed my phone number on a telemarketing list. I requested they remove my number the SEVERAL times they called, and eventually had to yell at someone that there was minors in my house (a lie) and they better not call again.

That's actually the best way to get rid of porn telemarketers apparently.

Raere

Any chance you can tell us what the company/site was for the dirty folk who don't want to get ripped off too.

Oh, and don't be embarrassed. Your brother did it, not you. As long as you know that, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.

Willeth

Yeah, you might want to put a watch on your account and possibly cancel it completely - not only could it be really bloody difficult to get your CC from them, a lot of porn sites are operated by organised crime, so fraud is a definite possibility.

Also, you might want to slap your brother upside the head.

Pheezer

Frostozuna wrote: »

The porn site itself isn't on the BBB, but they guys they use for billing are on there.

What should I say to my bank to pre-emptively prevent this, if that's at all possible?

THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU IS NOT THERE TO PROTECT YOU

REPORTING ANYTHING TO THEM IS A WASTE OF YOUR TIME

IT WILL ACCOMPLISH NOTHING

EVER

IN A HUNDRED MILLION YEARS.


I'm sorry, but the BBB is the most worthless advice and the most empty, meaningless threat you can ever make as a consumer.

Let me break it down:
Business men start up a club. They charge businesses $1 to join. In return the businesses get to promote themselves as members of this ethical business dood club. They'll file any complaints you might have and *GASP* maybe even boot members if they get too many complaints.

So what happens? Maybe, if you get really, really, really furious you'll actually bother to file something with the BBB if you get screwed. Okay, great. Except: When was the last time you checked with the BBB before you used a business? Any business? You never have. No one ever does. It's fucking irrelevant. There's no guarantee that they'll even tell anyone who calls (not that anyone will) about any complaints they have filed because why would they? They have no reason to.

The BBB is a giant crock. It's a group of people who sell stickers with BBB printed on them to businesses world wide, pretend to handle some minor administrative work, and collect a nice fat paycheque. Don't waste your time.

izaelj15

I had the same problem, but it was my nephew, I called my bank and they told me the transactions and they said the $25 transaction been cancelled twice

Kyougu

Most people have covered the relevant advice, so I will just offer this:

Show your younger brother where the free porn on the internet is.