Blue Host, Gate.com and your Bank WILL STEAL FROM YOU!
I hope the title got your attention.
There seems to be a persistent and long-standing problem in the internet world with automatic withdrawals from your account when buying something on the web. It is as if once you use an account to buy something, the vendor has the RIGHT to take money from that account indefinitely.
A little history.
Back in the late 90s and early this decade, the MAFIA was running a recurring charge scam. The user would sign-up to a porn website and enter their account number. Later, they would go to the website and cancel it, or the website would promise to cancel it after a certain period. Of course, after that, many never thought about it again.
Well, guess what?
The website would continue billing the account. While a few people caught this and reversed the charges, many didn’t. The MAFIA made hundreds of millions ($100,000,000+) of dollars running this scam. In fact, they bought a bank to handle the operation!
Eventually, they got caught by the Feds. But do you think the credit card companies refunded all the money they made by participating in this scam? Do you think they made any attempt to discover this scam to protect you?
Your bank/credit card company is not out to protect you or your money. Now, let me tell you what happened to me.
BlueHost and Gate.com scam
I used Gate.com and BlueHost for hosting. For different reasons, I decided to switch to GoDaddy to host these websites. Just to be clear, I’m not recommending GoDaddy and I certainly don’t have my domains AND hosting with GoDaddy. It’s just that they were convenient for transferring these websites.
Gate.com
In the case of Gate.com, the hosting was fine but the price was exorbitant for my usage. Instead of cancelling I decided to cancel the card account used for the purchase. They tried and tried to submit a charge for hosting despite all the rejections. Eventually, the bank processed the transaction.
It’s strange my bank didn’t see all the failed transactions and yet not make any attempt to tell me someone is trying to access my account. They didn’t flag the charge. They didn’t review the charge. They didn’t block the charge.
I guess the banks will charge you for an overdraft for a single overdraft, but WILL NOT charge anyone else from multiple failed attempts to get your money.
Blue Host
For BlueHost, their censors decided my content wasn’t to their tastes and suspended the account. Instead of changing my content, I decided to just move the site. While this is happening, they make multiple attempts to charge the same closed account Gate.com tried. I guess BlueHost was offended by the content, but not TOO offended to try and take my money.
In both cases, for Gate.com and Blue Host, the BANK paid money from my account on a CLOSED charge card account (Mastercard). Now, if you think just because you close a debit/credit card account, the BANK still won’t pay it and charge you for it, you have just learned the opposite.
The Bottom Line.
Personally, the way banks are operating now, they are doing everything possible to generate overdraft fees/service charges/interest rate increases. This includes paying fradulent transactions. Plus, they don’t penalize multiple failed attempts for the same transaction by charging something like an overdraft fee. If each failed attempt cost $33, I guarantee almost all of these fraudulent charges would disappear.
The banks are not here to protect the consumer and really neither is PayPal. You have to be very careful with these payment options because they are not out to protect you, the consumer.
Web Charges.
Blue Host and Gate.com are not the only hosts guilty of this. It is basically industry practice. They probably all abuse this aspect of bank procedure, including GoDaddy. Hopefully, you can find a solution to this. I thought closing the card account would STOP fraudulent charges, but it seems that alone is not enough. You have to close the underlying account (credit, savings, checking). Then again, the way the banks operate, they’ll probably figure out another way to hit you with a charge by saying it’s a debt you didn’t pay.
Be careful out there!
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