Current mood:	pissed off
Current music:	Tricky - She Makes Me Wanna Die
Entry tags:	reservation rewards scam, webloyalty.com

Warnings About Reservation Rewards
This just happened to me this morning, so I thought I'd write it down and warn as many people as possible. Perhaps you might even save yourself some money too. If you've ordered something on-line, or are thinking about it, you may want to read the following very closely:

The Enemy
Reservation Rewards, a subsidiary of Webloyalty.com, Inc., but an entity of that company nonetheless. The company purchases your credit card information from the companies you order from, or secures information via pop-ups, and then charges a monthly fee of $9-12 dollars to your account under the guise of free rewards for your patronage. This is a scam.

Companies are required to inform you of any applicable charges to your account, or potential fees in writing at least 15 days before the charges appear -- which officially places Webloyalty's 'scam' in the fraud category. As a part of this fraud, Reservation Rewards has been helping itself to the credit card/bank accounts of many an unsuspecting person -- monthly and without informing anyone.

Officially, this company has no right to your money and you can -- and should -- do everything in your power to prevent them from getting it.

What To Look For
If you don't know what to look for, review your charges and search for anything that says RESERVATIONREWARD 8007327031 or something similar. What this is the company's name and its phone number (don't bother calling).

How To Keep Them From Getting/Keeping Your Money
If you find a charge listed under the above heading or record, call your credit card or bank (depending on what you paid with) and file a dispute claim as soon as possible -- within two business days of the charge is when the best results occur. The sooner you find this charge (in my case, during the bugger's pending period), the easier it will be to have the charge reversed and your money returned/protected -- credit card companies find issue with anything over 120 days (typical). Be sure to inform the card company or bank that the charge was unauthorized and you've discontinued service (both should be true at this point).

Please note that some banks, like Bank of America, will not be able to file a dispute claim until the company's charge goes completely through (no longer pending). In the meantime, they will give you the phone number for Reservation Rewards (something painfully obvious on your account already) and have a recording of your request to dispute recorded via the phone call. To be honest, I don't recommend calling Reservation Rewards -- they took your money without your permission and will ask for more information about you during the call. (After this headache, why waste your money and set yourself up for another potential scam down the line when they try something else with the data they've collected? The hell with that, I say...)

If your bank or card company has a similar policy about pending transactions, wait twenty-four hours and check back regularly until they can file a dispute claim (when the charge is processed), then file one immediately. The point of filing a claim is giving both FDIC a heads up about the company and to force Reservation Rewards to foot the bill for the entire mess. In the meantime, I strongly recommend writing the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and your state's Attorney General, letting them know Reservation Rewards is committing fraud; they've done nothing to earn your respect or your money, so tell everybody exactly how you feel.

If you need more leverage, say that you request assistance in accordance with Federal Regulation E and you will not stop until you have been reimbursed.

Unfortunately, there is no previous precedence for this and as such Reservation Rewards has been getting away with this for a while. But no longer, because I refuse to be a victim and I will never lie down when faced with a challenge -- they picked the wrong woman. I have a list of a few websites that have been in hunting grounds for Reservation Rewards, but this is by no means all of them:

• Buy.com
  
• LiveNation (where my charge came from)
  
• Expedia.com
  
• US Airways
  
• UBid.com
  
• Geeks.com

Summation
You can choose to avoid the listed websites altogether, or still purchase from them, but I still felt obligated to share this data with the world. Watch where you click and stick it to anyone that tries to commit fraud against you, whether it be for $12 or anything else. You work hard for your money and in this time when we're being squeezed for every last euro, dollar, pound, peso, and rupee, your paycheck has never been so important. Don't let Reservation Rewards, or Webloyalty,com, Inc., take away what's rightfully yours.