I wouldn’t worry about your credit report either. In the highly unlikely event FYE attempts to tarnish your credit, you have the right to insert your own letter into your report. If you pay your bills on time no lender going to care about some $10 dispute.

One of the reasons I try not to use the credit card too often.
Of course I’m from germany and you actually still can use cash here.

Or your cash card.
You can still get scammed with those but usually its not too hard stopping monthly payments or even getting the money back.

Lucky you. The last time that I disputed a charge (in a case of theft), I was required to write an essay and snail-mail it to my credit card company. Sidelining disputed charges is one of the myriad sleazy ways that credit card companies are trying to stay solvent.

Additionally, you can also file complaints with your local Better Business Bureau and State Attorney General’s Office in order to try to prevent this happening to others in the future. In some cases, the Attorney General will pursue legal action on behalf of those affected in their state.

And, just so you know, before I started working at FYE, I shopped their frequently. I have signed up for and cancelled the VIP without issue twice. My fiance has done it once. it really is just a 3 or 4 minute phone call. In fact, now you can cancel it online by clicking a button that says “cancel.” When people complain about the horrible ways in which they were scammed by FYE (it doesn’t happen frequently, but we occasionally get them in our store) we help them as best as we can (get them their membership number and give them the cancellation phone number and website address) and then shake our heads when they leave. Because to be signed up “without their knowledge” they would need to be willing to answer a lot of questions, ignore the loyalty card booklet handed to them, and sign a slip that says “I understand that if I do not cancel within 30 days my card will be charged a monthly fee of ____” (currently 11.99/ month.)

TLG*FYE VIPXXXXXXXXJUN 877-351-2131 N

on your statement, the X’d out numbers are your membership number.

With this information I was able to call and cancel the membership. According to the rep I spoke with, I was ‘signed up’ when I made my purchase. He claimed I had received a discount at the store (news to me), and that this ‘entitled’ me to membership. Since I didn’t opt out of membership within 30 days, they signed me up.

So now I have a cancellation number from him, and time will tell if they actually cancel the charges, or continue to bill me.

In the mean time, I’ve learned a valuable lesson – don’t shop at FYE, and check you statements, even if the dollar amount looks right. It’s easy to miss a $10 charge, which is what they’re counting on.

I can assure you there is a monitoring system, and threats of employee termination.. For refunding too many defrauded customers.