- Report: #197509
Complaint Review: TLG Travelers Advantage - Traveler Advntag - TLG*TRAVEL ADV - Days Inn - Trumbull Connecticut
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TLG Travelers Advantage - Traveler Advntag - TLG*TRAVEL ADV - Days Inn
P.O.Box 1042 Trumbull, 06611 Connecticut, U.S.A.
Phone:
800-678-3029
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TLG Travelers Advantage - Traveler Advntag - TLG*TRAVEL ADV - Days Inn fraudulent credit card charges posted yearly for 6 years after cancellation with different name than original charge of $1, RIPOFF! Trumbull Connecticut
I have 2 word documents that explain in better detail. To summarize, my husband was conned into joining 20 Feb, 2001 via a gas coupon they sent us. A $1 charge posted from Traveler Advntag (sic) to our credit card statement. I called and cancelled promptly.
I inspected credit card statements to make sure nothing posted through the end of the 90 day trial (May). Nothing did. June was clean too, so I figured things were ok, and forgot about it.
Yesterday, I received a travel pamphlet with a small notice on the back that said your Travelers Advantage membership will be renewed soon! Underneath it says the $99.99 annual membership fee will be automatically billed to your credit card. Then it gives a phone number to call if you wish to cancel. I called and they said we joined through the Days Inn internet in 2005, and they would cancel and refund that money if I wrote a letter and faxed it to 624-823-5124.
I searched my 2005 credit card statements, found an entry for TLG*TRAVEL ADV, that I hadn't questioned because I thought it was a travel advance repayment for one of my husband's government business trips. I wrote the letter requesting credit and faxed it. I was very suspicious of how they got our name from Days Inn when we didn't even stay there that year.
This morning I searched 2004 credit card statements to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything that year. I found a posting identical to 2005's charge. Then I searched and found charges all the way back to the first one in August 2001, for $69.99 all with a similar misleading name, and all different than the name on that first $1 charge.
This is the first time in 6 years I've seen anything to indicate an annual renewal. If they did send anything before, it wasn't recognizable as a bill, and was thrown away as junk mail. I wrote another letter informing them I want my money back with interest and faxed it. I informed them that if they didn't change their renewal notices to require written or verbal approval for an annual renewal, I would try to put them out of business by every legal means possible. This is step one.
Sheryl
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
U.S.A.
I inspected credit card statements to make sure nothing posted through the end of the 90 day trial (May). Nothing did. June was clean too, so I figured things were ok, and forgot about it.
Yesterday, I received a travel pamphlet with a small notice on the back that said your Travelers Advantage membership will be renewed soon! Underneath it says the $99.99 annual membership fee will be automatically billed to your credit card. Then it gives a phone number to call if you wish to cancel. I called and they said we joined through the Days Inn internet in 2005, and they would cancel and refund that money if I wrote a letter and faxed it to 624-823-5124.
I searched my 2005 credit card statements, found an entry for TLG*TRAVEL ADV, that I hadn't questioned because I thought it was a travel advance repayment for one of my husband's government business trips. I wrote the letter requesting credit and faxed it. I was very suspicious of how they got our name from Days Inn when we didn't even stay there that year.
This morning I searched 2004 credit card statements to make sure I hadn't overlooked anything that year. I found a posting identical to 2005's charge. Then I searched and found charges all the way back to the first one in August 2001, for $69.99 all with a similar misleading name, and all different than the name on that first $1 charge.
This is the first time in 6 years I've seen anything to indicate an annual renewal. If they did send anything before, it wasn't recognizable as a bill, and was thrown away as junk mail. I wrote another letter informing them I want my money back with interest and faxed it. I informed them that if they didn't change their renewal notices to require written or verbal approval for an annual renewal, I would try to put them out of business by every legal means possible. This is step one.
Sheryl
Fort Walton Beach, Florida
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Jerrod
La Crosse,Wisconsin,
U.S.A.
Worse from the customer side
#2UPDATE EX-employee responds
Tue, June 17, 2008
To make things clear, let me start by saying I never actually worked for Traveler's Avdantage or any of their parent companies. I worked for Hanover Direct in a call center in La Crosse, Wi, who sold the packages. The company I was involved with answered calls and posted orders for several catalogs, one that produced its goods locally. The call procedure was to take the order as many other companies would, but then give the illusion that it took time for the price to calculate. During which you would pitch them one of several package deals. Upon denial or acceptance, the total price was quoted and the call completed. Calls that were strictly pertaining to Travelers Advantage were directed call to a 1-800 to address the issue, but not until after we pitched them a different package. In my opinion the only purpose of the catalog portion of the call was to get people on the phone and offer the packages. If we were not able to sell enough in the first months to hit a quota, we were terminated, which was the case with me. To me it was the worst part of the job. It happened to be the year of the dock workers strike and all of the materials for the products sold in the catalogs were sitting in staging waiting to come off from ships. Many, if not most of the calls I received were pertaining to back orders. None the less I had to push these promotions regardless of the situation of the call. Poor, confused 90 year old women trying to get Christmas presents for her grandchildren and now I have to try to get her to purchase a travel package. I often didn't make the pitch as I am tall enough to see over the partitions they provided and could see if the team leader was making evaluations or not. I am not the only one who felt this way and there was another trick that was used by some less moraly inclined people. If you just wait for the calls from people who don't sound so smart, or order as if they have all the money in the world, just sign them up for it without pitching it. Either they are smart enough to check their statements and will work it out before any harm is done, or they are not so smart, don't check, and won't notice they are being ripped off. It's unfortunate that this 3rd party stuff took an otherwise good job and made it something no self respecting person would do, but at least I made it through with my conscious intact. Well, it came back to bite me despite my past dealings with it, now 8 years later, via Best Buy. Luck was on my side and we happened across the entry on our statement on its first billing. After 2 weeks of harassing Best Buy customer and billing support, we finally took matters in our own hands, where we happened across this site. I was shocked to find out that this is the very product I used to push on people that had me and my wife pulling our hair out over, while blaming the wrong people. It was simple to remedy once we knew what we were dealing with, but that doesn't make it right. It's hard to imagine that I or my wife would be taken by it though. We don't travel and rarely make the kind of calls that would end in one of these packages being sold, nor have we ever bought from Best Buys website. A Best Buy Rep claiming to have worked there for 13 years says they are offering the same packages now that they were 3 years ago when we got our account. It has to be affiliated with them yet no one, in over 10 calls to Best Buy knew about it, or offered it again. I don't have a solution as to how we ended up with this leach and Best Buy is denying it. I have a feeling that it could be that old scheme of signing us up for the commission, and quota numbers without pitching the product, but can't be sure. I just know there is no good way to protect against it as things are right now. Sorry to anyone I might have hurt by offering this garbage. I do offer to help combat it if there is anything I can do though. Jerrod
