There was this ‘hot’ article about a new site that was compared to Ebay, on the bidrack website. On Ebay, as on Amazon.com you can search and browse without spending a cent. So I was totally unprepared for their just ripping $59 off my card as a result of my merely signing on. They DO say that’s what they’re doing on that first page where you sign up, but I didn’t read it carefully the first time to see that. I thought I was signing up to be a member or get a ‘my bidrack’ ident or something like that. And my info would then be available for whenever I chose to do some bidding.
Clicking submit button got me to a page that said I now had all these bid tickets, and there were a lot more than the original 50 freebids I had expected, which is how I came to realize they had just ripped $59 from my credit card. I tried to get back to the initial forms page where I’d seen the 800 number, but couldn’t without signing on again, and I didn’t want to chance losing another $59. So I googled the number and called. “Whitney” was pleasant but said all she could do was email me the form with a ticket number that also gives instructions how to "request” a refund, which I did. Their fulfillfment persona infers this should not be a problem.
This was at 6am [6/28]. I'm curious to know if anyone else went thru' any other scammy events around the time of their bad experience with bidrack. The last time i encountered something like this was several years ago. But ...!!: several hours later i was affronted by an altogether other event. I was using Google Maps, and a window popped up saying i was Google's June 28 winner. A page followed with a 'google' winner certificate, followed by a page with 3 choices - a gift certificate for $1000 for Walmart, another for Best Buy and something else. There was a timer ticking off seconds from like 30-0, so i picked one, which took me to web form asking for all the usual personal info. At the bottom of the page were links to their program policy and privacy policy, which wasn't trying to hide much. They said we give your info to 3rd parties in order to solicit via phone, email, etc. Also ... but you get the idea.
I tried to report this to google and was told they did not have any way to deal with this stuff effectively and put it in the context of an international problem, suggesting that prosecuting across international lines made taking any legal action virtually impossible.
One of the things the scammers had in their privacy policy was that they use some kind of 'bugs' similar to cookies to mine info, and it made me wonder if there was a connection between these two events. It's just so incredible that they both happened within hours of each other. I wondered if their 'bugs' had infiltrated my PC. Is that possible? Anyone else had an experience like this?