Even Batman gets questionable charges
We asked BillGuard, a services that checks your bills for bad charges, about the top four charges that their users found most “surprising” on their credit card bills.
Here are the “gray charges” to look for:
- TWX MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS. From BillGuard: “TWX/Synapse, a subsidiary of Time Warner, relies on a data pass model to trick consumers into costly subscriptions.” The consumer ends up signing up for some magazines that they thought were free, but end up getting charged months later for full subscriptions when the trial ends.
- IC FREESHIPPING.COM. BillGuard says: “In the typical case, consumers buying goods at some other site will see an offer for ‘free shipping’ and accept it, not realizing that they’ve also signed up for freeshipping.com.”
- BLIZZARD ENT WOW SUB. If you have a young gamer in your family, they may have signed up for the hugely popular World of Warcraft without you knowing about it. BillGuard warns that the game provides a billing option that “allows consumers (and, more pointedly, their children) to pay for Blizzard games and subscriptions by simply entering their phone number information in the account settings tab.”
- SKYPE COMMUNICATIO LUXEMBOURG LU. If you’ve ever tried out Skype, BillGuard warns: “Unless you specifically opt out, Skype enrolls you in an auto-renewal program upon initial registration. Many customers don’t realize that until it’s too late.”
Hopefully, none of these come up on your credit card bill. But, if they do, at least now you’ll know to try to get a refund.
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