Complaint Review: EUROPEANDESTINATIONS.COM - SOLAR TOURS - Washington District of Columbia

This complaint is regarding two unlawful and unauthorized charges of $666.58 each, placed on my Discover Card on July 23, 2009 by Solar Tours of Washington, DC. Solar Tours placed these unlawful and unauthorized charges on my Discover Card in violation of its own stated credit card authorization rules as posted on its website. These unlawful and unauthorized charges were placed for ATIflights.com. and were in violation of ATIflights.com credit card authorization rules as posted on its website. Solar Tours, through its relationship with ATIflights has violated Federal statute 18 U.S.C 1029 (a)(10) of the Computer Crime Statutes by:

Knowingly and with intent to defraud causes to be presented for payment, or arranges for another person to present for payment one or more evidences or records of transactions made by an access device without the authorization of the credit card member or its agent thereby affecting interstate or foreign commerce. 

    Background: 

On July 22, 2009 I was searching the internet to book two airline flights to Italy for my daughter and her friend. I found ATI flights through the search. Their website had two Delta Airlines flights that fit the bill for their travel plans. I began to fill out the requested information to book the flights.  When I finished providing the information requested in the credit card area it stated that in order to book for people other than the credit card holder a credit card authorization form must be filled out, signed and faxed to ATIflights.com.  The form requested copies of the following items: my credit card, my picture ID, and the lead traveler's passport. ATI terms and conditions of booking specifically state (in two places on its website) that unless this information is provided the ticket will not be booked and the credit card will not be charged.  ATI also states that it does not accept Discover Card as a payment form for third party transactions though Discover is listed as an Accepted Credit Card in another area of its website. I read the rules and since I did not want to provide this personal information to ATIflights I clicked out of the credit card area, AFTER, deleting my credit card and passengers information from the online form. Subsequently, I booked two tickets on that day (July 22, 2009) through Expedia.com for the same Delta Flights and charged them to my Discover card which posted immediately. On July 23, 2009 Solar Tours, an organization I have never heard of, charged my Discover credit card for two individual tickets at $666.48 each, totaling 1333.16. This violates its policy also (outlined on the website under terms and conditions) which is similar to the ATIflights policy in requesting Faxed Credit Card authorization including copies of the credit card, cardholder picture ID, and lead traveler's passport. 

On October 19, 2009 I made two telephone calls to resolve this issue. The first call was made to Solar Tours.  I was told that since I booked the flight there would be no refund to my credit card.  The woman asked for a confirmation number which I do not have because I did not continue with or authorize the booking. I then called ATIflights and I believe I spoke with the same woman. She was able to give me a booking number but again, similar information, such as, flight is booked, the addition of not taking Discover card was just added to the website, they don't really need the hard copy to charge my account, the confirmation information went to one of the people taking the flight, my daughter's friend was listed as the card holder, why didn't I call to cancel when I got the email, etc, etc.  I then received a call from a supervisor named Therese at ATIflights stating that she was calling to look into the matter but basically accusing my daughter and her friend of using my credit card to commit fraud by saying that her friend was an authorized user of the card.  Neither have access to my credit cards or credit numbers and they both live out of town. I then received another telephone call from Therese, ATIflights supervisor.  She maintains that my daughters friend booked these two flights, stating that she has his IP address and that it was used for the booking. That is impossible due to the situation that I described above--I put the original booking and credit card information into the system from my IP address. She also said that a confirmation email was sent to my daughters friend which he did not respond to and that recently another email was sent because the flights had changed and he hasn't responded to that either. On July 22, 2009 as soon as I booked through Expedia I sent an email to my daughters friend telling him to blow off calls or contacts from ATI since I had discontinued the booking due to the discomfort I felt in sending them the requested information.  I do alot of secure transactions online for my business and I have NEVER been asked to fax the front and back of my credit card or a photo ID and certainly not someone else's passport. I believe that their software picked up my information and went on to process it prior to online submission and confirmation and without the required written authorization.  

3.  Resolution

I have filed a dispute with Discover which they tell me has to go to the FAA anytime airlines are involved. I also filed a complaint with the FBI through their IC3-Internet Crime Complaint Center of the FBI.  

I would like to resolve this issue with a credit of $1333.16 placed on my account.