Scam - "TLG*GREATFN" transactions on Credit Card statement

Have you ever been billed for merchandise you returned or never received? Has your credit card company ever charged you twice for the same item or failed to credit a payment to your account? While frustrating, these errors can be corrected. It takes a little patience and knowledge of the dispute settlement procedures provided by the Fair Credit Billing Act (FCBA).

The law applies to open end credit accounts, such as credit cards, revolving charge accounts - such as department store accounts - and overdraft checking accounts. It does not cover installment contracts - loans or extensions of credit you repay on a fixed schedule. Consumers often buy cars, furniture and major appliances on an installment basis, and repay personal loans in installments as well.

What types of disputes are covered?
The FCBA settlement procedures apply only to disputes about billing errors. For example: unauthorized charges. Federal law limits your responsibility for unauthorized charges to $50; charges that list the wrong date or amount; charges for goods and services you didnt accept or werent delivered as agreed; math errors; failure to post payments and other credits, such as returns; failure to send bills to your current address - provided you supply a change of address at least 20 days before the billing period ends; and charges for which you ask for an explanation, or written proof of purchase along with a claimed error or request for clarification.

To take advantage of the laws consumer protections, you must: write to the creditor at the address given for billing inquiries, not the address for sending your payments, and include your name, address, account number and a description of the billing error. send your letter so that it reaches the creditor within 60 days after the first bill containing the error was mailed to you.

Send your letter by certified mail, return receipt requested, so you have proof of what the creditor received. Include copies (not originals) of sales slips or other documents that support your position. Keep a copy of your dispute letter.
Sample Dispute LetterDateYour Name Your Address Your City, State, Zip Code Your Account Number Name of CreditorBilling Inquiries Address City, State, Zip Code Dear Sir or Madam: I am writing to dispute a billing error in the amount of $______on my account. The amount is inaccurate because (describe the problem). I am requesting that the error be corrected, that any finance and other charges related to the disputed amount be credited as well, and that I receive an accurate statement. Enclosed are copies of (use this sentence to describe any enclosed information, such as sales slips, payment records) supporting my position. Please investigate this matter and correct the billing error as soon as possible. Sincerely, Your name Enclosures: (List what you are enclosing.)
The creditor must acknowledge your complaint in writing within 30 days after receiving it, unless the problem has been resolved. The creditor must resolve the dispute within two billing cycles (but not more than 90 days) after receiving your letter.

What happens while my bill is in dispute?
You may withhold payment on the disputed amount (and related charges), during the investigation. You must pay any part of the bill not in question, including finance charges on the undisputed amount.

The creditor may not take any legal or other action to collect the disputed amount and related charges (including finance charges) during the investigation. While your account cannot be closed or restricted, the disputed amount may be applied against your credit limit.

Will my credit rating be affected?
The creditor may not threaten your credit rating or report you as delinquent while your bill is in dispute. However, the creditor may report that you are challenging your bill. In addition, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibits creditors from discriminating against credit applicants who exercise their rights, in good faith, under the FCBA. Simply put, you cannot be denied credit simply because youve disputed a bill.

What if......the bill is incorrect?
If your bill contains an error, the creditor must explain to you - in writing - the corrections that will be made to your account. In addition to crediting your account, the creditor must remove all finance charges, late fees or other charges related to the error.
If the creditor determines that you owe a portion of the disputed amount, you must get a written explanation. You may request copies of documents proving you owe the money.
...the bill is correct?

If the creditors investigation determines the bill is correct, you must be told promptly and in writing how much you owe and why. You may ask for copies of relevant documents. At this point, you’ll owe the disputed amount, plus any finance charges that accumulated while the amount was in dispute. You also may have to pay the minimum amount you missed paying because of the dispute.

If you disagree with the results of the investigation, you may write to the creditor, but you must act within 10 days after receiving the explanation, and you may indicate that you refuse to pay the disputed amount. At this point, the creditor may begin collection procedures. However, if the creditor reports you to a credit bureau as delinquent, the report also must state that you dont think you owe the money. The creditor must tell you who gets these reports.

If the creditor fails to follow the procedure...
Any creditor who fails to follow the settlement procedure may not collect the amount in dispute, or any related finance charges, up to $50, even if the bill turns out to be correct. For example, if a creditor acknowledges your complaint in 45 days - 15 days too late - or takes more than two billing cycles to resolve a dispute, the penalty applies. The penalty also applies if a creditor threatens to report - or improperly reports - your failure to pay to anyone during the dispute period.

An important caveat
Disputes about the quality of goods and services are not billing errors, so the dispute procedure does not apply. However, if you buy unsatisfactory goods or services with a credit or charge card, you can take the same legal actions against the card issuer as you can take under state law against the seller.

To take advantage of this protection regarding the quality of goods or services, you must: have made the purchase (it must be for more than $50) in your home state or within 100 miles of your current billing address; make a good faith effort to resolve the dispute with the seller first.

The dollar and distance limitations dont apply if the seller also is the card issuer - or if a special business relationship exists between the seller and the card issuer.

Other billing rights
Businesses that offer open end credit also must: give you a written notice when you open a new account - and at certain other times - that describes your right to dispute billing errors; provide a statement for each billing period in which you owe - or they owe you - more than one dollar; send your bill at least 14 days before the payment is due - if you have a period within which to pay the bill without incurring additional charges; credit all payments to your account on the date theyre received, unless no extra charges would result if they failed to do so. Creditors are permitted to set some reasonable rules for making payments, say setting a reasonable deadline for payment to be received to be credited on the same date; and promptly credit or refund overpayments and other amounts owed to your account. This applies to instances where your account is owed more than one dollar. Your account must be credited promptly with the amount owed. If you prefer a refund, it must be sent within seven business days after the creditor receives your written request. The creditor must also make a good faith effort to refund a credit balance that has remained on your account for more than six months.

Suing the creditor
You can sue a creditor who violates the FCBA. If you win, you may be awarded damages, plus twice the amount of any finance charge - as long as its between $100 and $1,000. The court also may order the creditor to pay your attorneys fees and costs.

If possible, hire a lawyer who is willing to accept the amount awarded to you by the court as the entire fee for representing you. Some lawyers may not take your case unless you agree to pay their fee - win or lose - or add to the court-awarded amount if they think its too low.

Reporting FCBA violations
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) enforces the FCBA for most creditors except banks.
From http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/credit/fcb.htm

 

wow thats sucks!
Thats why i love this service in Portugal:
A vitual credit card valid for only 1 month and can only be used once.
This way its not possible to have those kind of problems.
If they try to use my virtual CC again it will say that is invalid
Good luck guys. Hope you get your money.

 

Well i'm very suprise to hear all this well i have been scam too in so many way so i'm confused cuz i dont know what to do and i really need a good harker to make friend with maybe he could help me out with this scam people.because i dont know who to make transaction with nobody to trust and my business is going down..

Mark hibbard



Happy for you too maybe i will move for service in Portugal and i need your hlp in that.


Mark

 

I just noticed I got hit by this scam as well. I checked my AMEX credit card statement today and noticed a $9.99 charge from great fun and some 1800 phone number.

I called amex and they told me that if you dispute this the $9.99 is automatically credited to your account no questions asked. Obviously they know about this scam.

If you have american express.. keep your eye out.

 

So many people are suffering from this... I saw this thread after almost one year I guess... I got my money back from my CC company atleast.. I hope everyone else too

 

The Real Deal Is the great fun is a discount company....based online they claim to provide people with car rental discounts,hotel,air fare...and all sorts of other things all u have to do is leave a box checked at the bottom of a page that u are ordering from...thats how they get your credit card #. In other words if you order from a site like circuit city.com and thier confirmation pages u go through...and you leave the boxes checked without reading what the are, they got you...Its a monthly billed thing I found all this out because I called thier 1800# to find out about my bill. I never knew i was being charged for it...For a year!!!! I got them to refund 2-months of bills to me. If they charged u call them and get a refund! 1800-285-5903 don't let them tell you "no" and you have to be very stern with them...You must be very firm and let them know u want nothing from them but a refund.

 

I joined Great Fun in March because of the $25 buy.com rebate. I kept calling them and they kept giving me different numbers to call for the rebate. Finally, they said that they never received it. They have charged me 2 times already.
Now they tell me to send in the proof again. I called them to cancel my membership and they offered another $25 from buy.com again. Should I send in the first rebate again and take the $25 offer again. I think I am using $40 to get $50 rebate. What else they can offer me?
I don't want to lose the $20 they have charged me already.

 

Why you people get so upset for a few bucks?!

 

First of all I just want to say that only a person who can afford to throw money away would say we were making a big deal about this scam. I for one work hard for my money and I don't like being ripped off. I too was charged for 3 months and when I called the 800 number they kept trying to sell to me. I am going to notify the media of this scam and all the victims as soon as I am finished here. Watch your television ladies and gents.

 

Recently noticed a charge of 9.99 on my Credit Card statement too.
They got my CC no after I purchased my flight tickets on ORBITZ. Once the purchase process was complete, there was a link that indicated I would get some discounts. Thinking maybe ORBITZ was giving discount coupons for future purchases, I clicked on it (still kicking myself for doing it) and thats when my CC details were transferred. Buried somewhere in the text, they had mentioned that this service would be free for the first two months after which I would be charged $9.99 /month.
If you look at your transaction on your CC, there is an 800 number that you can call. Also, after the text GREATFN, there is an 8 digit number. This is your membership number

TLG*GREATFNXXXXXXXXAUG ########## CT

The XXXXXXXX will be your mem. no and ########## is the phone number to call.

So the learning is 'DONT CLICK ON ANY ADVERTISING LINKS AFTER YOU MAKE YOUR PURCHASE'.

Also, my credit card company offers the facility of generating 'VIRTUAL NUMBERS' for website purchases. I am not going to go into details of what it means, but I now realize that it will help me protect against just these kinds of frauds.

I have been strongly advised to cancel my credit card and go for a new one. People say the credit card number gets passed on so much, the charges on your CC can go upto $200. Sp dont wory about the 2 months charges that you will lose, but protect yourself from the long term losses.

 

Hm,

I would expect Buy.com not to be this bad

 

1) I think McFox is right. Some of us must have forgot to read the fine prints, while putting up the information.
2) It have nothing to do with buy.com
3) I also had similar charges on my credit card. One from TLG*GreatFun and other one from TLG*TRVLADV. I called them up, they looked up my account info and cancelled so called "Subscription" ...they said they will credit my account back. I will update the forum if this happens however with this I am sure that I am not going to get charged further.

Do this
1) Call the number 1-888-488-9480
2) Answering machine will ask for your membership number (...?) I was also puzzled. I hang up went back to my outlook experss and searched the junk emails wit keyword TLG and luckily I found one email which had my membership number. I called back... reached to the operator and she cancelled my "Subscription".

Hope this help.

-chai

Some more Info
1) For TLG Great Fun use number 1-877-488-9480
2) For TLG Travel Adv use number 1-800-548-1116

While Searching emails from them ...Try key words like "Great Fun" "Travel Adv"....emails from them never had TLG word in the subject line.

 

I recently checked my bank account info online and this is what I saw:

CHECKCARD TLG*GREAT FUN 800-290-8603 ON 10/12

I called the company and they said I had signed up a $20 rebate, which I didn't and then I remebered a weird thing that happened with my overstock.com order.

This is how my order looked:

Subtotal: $17.95
Order Discount: $19.35
Shipping: $1.40
Taxes: $0.00
____________

Total: $0.00

I noticed that I was not charged anything and discounted $19.35 for some weird reason and then I got the fraudulent charge. I did not think overstock.com would be involved in some kind of scam, but it is.

If you shop at this site make sure you check very carefully to see if you are discounted about $20, because that is when your credit/debit/check card will be scammed.

 

Hi,

When I was scanning my cardit card history, I found a new transaction "Tlg*greatfn57337673nov 800-290-8603 Ct". The same transaction was in my credit card account last month. But, I didn't remember what that transactions were. I tried google to see if I could locate any information on this. As I understood this is a scam, I contacted greatfn customercare via email. This is their response:

_______________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking the time to email us at Great Fun.

We apologize for any inconvenience in this matter. Our records indicate
that you enrolled on 09/03/06 through an offer extended to you through
buy.com. You joined with 1 month for free.

Please be advised your membership# 57337673 was canceled on 11/18/2006.
Your cancellation number is CT336041118. Credit will be posted to your
account in the next 10-15 business days and you will see it reflected
on
your next 1-2 billing statements, depending on your billing cycle.

Thank you for trying Great Fun and if you would like to become a member
in the future please do not hesitate to call or visit our site.

Thank you,


Cheryl, Your Great Fun Representative


______________________________________________________________

It is because of the buy.com purchase. Please avoid buy.com website.

Thanks

 

What's with all the one post wonders in this thread??

Might be time for an IP check

 

It's probably from people Googling "greatfn" and coming across this thread. This is the reason why you should always read the legal crap you agree to, especially just after handing your CC number over to someone. All the same, I think I'll be staying away from Buy.com.

 

I was billed twice by Great Fun. When I called to cancel, Great Fun said their records showed I had signed up through a rebate offer from Shoebuy.com. While I did purchase shoes through Shoebuy.com, I never signed up for their rebate offer, although I remember seeing something about their offer the second (and last) time I bought shoes, just a few weeks ago.

Even if I had signed up for the rebate offer, there is a big difference between signing up for a rebate and signing up for someone to bill you $10 every month.

(The Great Fun rep. originally put me on hold for six minutes. If I wasn't so mad, I would have given up.)

I will never buy from Shoebuy.com again.

 

First, thank you for solving a mystery that has been bugging me for a looooooong time. I too was being charged by this Great Fun company and could not figure out why. But unlike you, it took longer than 3 months for me to stop it. They had the gall to send me a postcard telling me they were going to start charging me even more unless I called them and told them to stop!

Anyway thanks to you I figured out how and when it happened. I too purchased a product at Buy.com with a rebate. I just visited the site and found there is a lawyer looking into the issue. Go to www.girardgibbs.com and sign up!

 

Bonobo, that sucks dude. So looks like purchases at BUY.com, surely get you in this trap!

 

I received a billing from TLG Great Fun on my May VISA statement. I called TLG and talked with Jessica, who told me that it automatically enrolled me in TLG's travel service for $9.99/month when I placed my order on Avon.com. I told Jessica that I will not pay for the service. She immediately issued me a transaction number and said I would not be billed in future months. I asked, "What about the current billing, I am not going to pay it either." She placed me on hold for a couple of minutes and later said they would credit my credit card in 10 to 15 business days. Be careful with this company. If their policy isn't illegal, it's at least unethical. I also wrote to Avon.com and told them that I would never order from them again until they assured me that this TLG billing practice would stop.