Buyer Beware: Hwsc Disreputable!!

[beatnik]

Hello all,

Just wanted to let you know of my recent bad experience with the Hotwire Savings Club. I feel responsible for you all, as I have posted previously about my favorable experiences with Q and C vouchers that I had purchased through them. But I had learned from Mary Waring (of Mousesavers) before I joined the HWSC that they are owned by MWI, whose business practices are somewhat disreputable. And now I have learned through first hand experience that HWSC is no better. Here's the story:

About 1 week ago, I received my credit card bill which contained December's charges on it. There were 5 charges to HWSC dated various days that we were on vacation; the total of these charges were around $1000. We knew that we had made no charges to HWSC while we were away, so we called HWSC to see what was up. The customer service rep we talked could find no record of any charges beyond our $7.95 monthly membership fee. He said he had no idea what these charges were, he had no record of them, and there was nothing that he could do about it. So I naturally called my credit card company, who said they would investigate but that they would need to request that the membership be cancelled. Although we were owed some rebates on gift cards we had purchased (the company's policy is that you do not get any outstanding rebates once you cancel your membership), we naturally said this was fine, given the large amount of money involved.

I immediately called HWSC back to see if I could find out more (the first fellow I spoke with really seemed clueless). I got a very clever girl on the phone who immediately figured out what all the charges were-- they were for some substantial purchases that were made in late Novemeber, but because of the Thanksgiving holiday, the charges did not go through until the first week in December. Crisis solved, and I called the credit card company back, told them they didn't need to investigate the charges, and said not to request the membership be cancelled. The credit card company said fine, they'd take care of it.

Today, I went to log onto HWSC and saw that my membership had been cancelled. I called HWSC customer service (spoke to a supervisor) and was told that the membership could not be re-instated and that since I had cancelled it while I still had rebates due to me, I would not get the rebates that were coming to me! When I pointed out that I had not requested that the membership be cancelled, but it was my credit card company who did so, I was then told that this "was even worse, because I disputed the charges." What the heck did they expect when they could not recognize any of the charges that THEY had made to my card! I was speechless (but not for long!), and attempted to point out that the whole chain of events was set into motion by the incompetence of their customer service representative (I said it calmly, although I know it was slightly rude). Anyway, the supervisor and I went round and round, with HWSC hiding behind their "policy" stating that "the membership must be in good standing for any rebates to be issued," my stating over and over that I understood the terms of the membership, I was not disputing them, but that it was their poor customer service that was the ultimate cause of all this...

Well, I imagine I will get nowhere. We will file a complaint with the appropriate state attorney's general office (Ohama, Nebraska if any one else needs to know) and write a letter of complaint to both HWSC and Hotwire. Don't expect we will ever see our rebates, which were proabably $50 or less. I knew I was playing with fire with this HWSC membership, so I am not going to get to bent out of shape about this. But I did want to let you all know of my experience and to warn you:

Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware!

Beatnik

PS I am not that thrilled with my credit card comany right now either!!!

 

[SB in KY]

OK...let me get this straight....you are going to file a complaint with the attorney Generals office because YOU forgot what you charged...then YOU disputed legitimate charges with your credit card company, and YOU authorized the cancellation of your membership, but when it was cancelled as YOU authorized and the company did exactly what they had said up front that they would do (no rebates to cancelled accounts) it is THEIR fault???

Seems to me someone seems to be having some trouble accepting responsibility for their own actions...and it isn't Hotwire!!

 

[chager]

SB - A little harsh there don't ya think? Reread the post. The charges were showing as purchases from when they were on vacation. I think I would have been concerned too. If the first customer service rep had checked and said these were charges from the previous month then the whole situation could have been avoided.

beatnik - Sounds like it all was huge miscommunications on all parts. I'm suprised that no one had you request anything in writing before cancelling anything. That safeguard could have prevented this, too. It would have been helpful if the credit card statement had shown the original purchase date in paranthesis or something. I'm sure that this is not an everyday occurence either. Personally I agree with you that given the circumstances everything should have been reinstated. You can't tell me they have no way to do that becuase I'm sure there is. That would have been good customer service. I wonder if they would accept a letter from the cc company stating they cancelled it in error and then reinstate you. It's an idea anyway. Good luck getting everything sorted out.

 

[dandave]

Credit card bills usually have two different days listed for each transaction:
They have a Transaction date, when you charged the item;
and a Post date, when the item actually posted to your account.

If I called a company to ask about a charge on the Post Date, then I can see where they would have absolutely no idea what the charge was. They would only know what the transactions were on a Transaction date.

I took out a previous CC bill:
Trans Date 11/23 Post Date 11/24
" " 11/25 " " 11/28
" " 11/28 " " 12/01
" " 12/05 " " 12/08


Could this possibly have played a part in this whole thing? Did you ask about transactions on a Post date, instead of on Transaction dates??

 

[chager]

dandave - I think you made what I was trying to say about the 'charge date' and 'post date' much clearer
Examples are good
(Sleep is good too and since it's almost 2am that's what I need to do. ) zzzz

 

[beatnik]

Hey guys,

My previous post was perhaps not as detailed as I would have liked, as I felt like it was getting very long already.

The conversation I had with the supervisor was fairly unbeliveable. When I told her that my first conversation with her customer service rep led me to believe there was some error (at that point I was actually thinking it was with my credit card company) in billing, she told me that that wasn't possible because HWSC "doesn't make errors in billing." When I replied that anyone could make an error, she stated again simply that they do not!

So the reason I actually called my credit card company was to inquire about the charges, not dispute them. I was thinking that given the fact that the paper bill I had in my hand was printed probably a week prior, it was possible that this matter was already cleared up (perhpas the cc had erroneously posted someone else's charges to my account, they appeared on my paper bill, but had already been removed by the time I called HWSC). When my credit card company had a record of the charges that HWSC said they did not, I asked them "what next?" They said the next course of action was for them to investigate the charges with HWSC. But of course, the only reason there was any disputing of the charges was because of the intial answers I received from HWSC. But in all of this I am describing incompetence, not disreputability.

What I find to be disreptuable is thus:
1. The HWSC supervisor told me that they do not make billing errors.
2. When I pointed out that I had not asked that the membership be cancelled, but the credit card company had, she said this was "even worse, because I had disputed the matter with my credit card company." (HWSC seems to really not like that!)
3. I was told that since the error was at my end (it only was in that my crdeit card company was willing to look into the matter whereas HWSC initially was not), the membership could not be re-instated. Reading between the lines, one could conclude that they in fact CAN re-instate a membership, but that in my case they chose not to.

So the strong impression that I am left with is that this is likely one of the ways they expect to make money-- by not paying outstanding rebates. Over a large number of members, this can really add up to them. I also find it really, really seedy that they don't want you to be able to discuss any disputed charges your credit card company-- this seems to be a very big "sin" in their eyes!

And to the poster who thinks the whole problem our fault-- Egad! I will freely admit that it would be better if we kept a seperate record of all transactions that we make with our credit card, and in fact, we usually do print and save copies of the orders we make on line. However, at the time we had a house full of Thanksgiving guests, our printer ran out of ink, and we just weren't as organized as we usually are! My husband and I charge pretty much everything and every month there are dozens of charges on our card. We usually recognize most of the charges by date. Personally, I feel like if you are dealing with a reputable and/or competent company, you can have a lack or perfection in your own record keeping which you can then clarify with the comapny, no harm done.

I checked my credit card stament, by the way, and there are only transaction dates listed (this is the Disney Bank One Visa)-- and it turns out that HWSC did not process my payment until about a week after I placed the order.

So anyway, I am not particularly here to convince anybody one way or the other. SB in KY, if you think I am an unreasonable fool, more power to you! I merely felt that I had pushed this HWSC thing on these boards previously and now would recommend that others proceed with caution. And yes, I wil contact the State Attorney General's office. If they find the matter as unfounded as you do SB in KY, they will not waste their time by investigating. But if they have a pattern of such complaints (or think me more in touch with reality!), they may well look into the matter.

And by the way, note that I am not calling my credit card company disreputable. They made an error, yes, is not honoring my request to not attempt to cancel the HWSC membership. But they did not (directly) cause me any financial loss, tell me they don't make mistakes, mention that any reasonable steps to clarify the situation is problematic in their minds, and tell me there is nothing they can do because the error was at my end (if the error were at their end, they could correct this mistake?!).

On last moment on my soapbox, I have said this before on these boards and I will say it again: if we all come expect bad customer service, that is exactly what we will get. So I am reading the posts about the "post" vs "transaction" dates as entirely meaning to be helpful and I am not taking them as criticisms, but I strongly believe that the customer service reps at HWSC should be expected to be far more aware of this than I should be-- after this is their business, not mine. I am a veterinary neurologist, and I have the expectation that the owners of pets that are brought to me will have less knowledge about my line of work than I do. I do not ask them, "What part of your dog's brain should I try to remove the tumor from?" No that part is my business to know: I consider the dogs symptoms and the imaging findings and I tell YOU what part of the brain we will be doing surgery on! Not the best analogy, but I am in a hurry, we are on our way out of town!

Will be out of town for a few days, so you won't hear any immediate responses to any flaming I may get. So don't think I have slinked off, but I won't be back until Monday or Tuesday.

Take care,
Beatnik

 

[CheapMom]

Just curious- In what way do you feel you were 'playing with fire' regarding Hotwire?

 

[Kevenswife2]

EVERYONE makes mistakes! After I ordered some dining gift certificates I expected to be credited back $8.00 on my charge card. Imagine my delight when they credited me $20.20!! So yes, they DO make mistakes...and not always in their favor.

 

[ripleysmom]

Beatnik, I am not going to flame you, however, I am going to disagree with you that it is your fault. Your lack of good recordkeeping is responsible for what happened.

I also have to be honest and tell you that I am having a hard time understanding how HWSC could have allowed someone else to cancel YOUR membership or why the credit card company would have made that offer. In these days of computer and credit card fraud, most companies want to deal with the person directly not through an agent.

 

[Lewisc]

You bought $1000 worth of stuff and got billed $1000. The fact that the date was a few weeks off doesn't matter. Did you not notice you weren't billed for the items previously? I can understand if the charge was small but I find it hard to believe you didn't notice that you hadn't previously been billed for the items.

Sounds like HWSC cancelled you as a result of you making unwarranted complaints about being overbilled. Can't say that I blame them.

 

[wdwfam]

I have to say that I would remember if I charged $1,000 and hadn't received a bill yet. Do we automatically start blaming the company or look to ourselves first. Several times I have had small charges that I investigated before I started flaming the company. Not saying that they don't make mistakes is a little far fetched. Everyone makes mistakes. I can't believe the rep. would be speaking for the whole HWCS.

 

[jgates]

Originally posted by Kevenswife2
EVERYONE makes mistakes! After I ordered some dining gift certificates I expected to be credited back $8.00 on my charge card. Imagine my delight when they credited me $20.20!! So yes, they DO make mistakes...and not always in their favor.

I DARE YOU!!! Call them and tell them they made a mistake! I bet they wouldn't disagree with you on that one!!! They would admit it so fast and grab the $$ back!!!

I will give Beatnik one big huge benefit in that I know exactly how surprised I was a few nights when I was viewing my CC statement online. Boy the things you buy that you forget about.....specially during the holidays. The language coming out of my mouth was not exactly pretty!!!

I would be VERY panicky if the first glance I see is at a time that I was not even using the card for those transactions. I would have expected the CS, when provided with her log-in info, to provide a listing of all transactions to her, including the ship date etc. That would have eleviated all of the problems.

 

[TandyR]

I DARE YOU!!! Call them and tell them they made a mistake! I bet they wouldn't disagree with you on that one!!! They would admit it so fast and grab the $$ back!!!

No they wouldn't....they gave me a credit of $18.00 more then I expected, so I gave them a call to tell them (I called to tell them a) because I am honest and b) because I didn't want it to bite me in the butt later). I talked to a supervicer he reviewed my account and he said they made a mistake in giving me that credit but it was mine to keep. That was in November and I have recieved the correct credits ever since then. But yes they admitted they made a mistake but no they didn't grab the money back they said it was a gift to me.

 

[arminnie]

Someone questioned why the bank was able to cancel your membership. In the US, a bank is authorized to stop additional transactions from a merchant (cancelling your membership) at your request. Think of health club or book club memberships where you have pre-authorized a charge each month - the customer can request the bank not to accept any more. This came about because some merchants were NOT stopping the monthly charges even after the customer cancelled membership.

In today's world we are so used to merchants submitting transactions electronically and them posting within hours (so it seems sometimes!) but the merchant does legitmately have some leeway in sending in the transactions. There is no "law" that they have to send them in the next day. I've had transactions appear weeks if not months later. I don't know why your bank does not print the transaction date on your statement. It is certainly provided by the merchant - it is a required field for the merchant to be paid.

It is a VERY serious matter if a merchant submits fraudulent transactions intentionally. They could be prohibited from accepting Visa cards - sort of like the death penalty for online and telephone merchants. Your questioning the transactions is the first step (a baby step) in the process of identifying bad merchants which is probably why the rep was so upset that you had reported them. It can cost them a lot of money to defend themselves even as in this case when the transactions were legit.

I can certainly understand your frustration with poor customer service and the loss of your rebates from Hotwire. You obviously got an idiot at customer service on your first phone call. I honestly don't know if you can force them to reinstate your membership and rebates. It would certainly be nice if they did so, but I have doubts that you can force them to ignore your cancellation.

I would appeal to them from the perspective that you are a good customer (which it certainly sounds like you were) and they should want to keep your business. As for them making money off keeping your rebate - it will probably cost them way more than $50 to reprocess those charges if the bank submitted the dispute which it sounds like it did.

FYI - I also charge EVERYTHING on my Visa card. It's not a bad idea to have online access to your account and to check it between statements. That way you can see exactly what has been posted (each day if you choose) and you do not have to wait for a statement. The Disney Visa online site is pretty good. You can manage your reward dollars and check current offers. You can also download transaction into Quicken or Money. I balance my Visa accounts like I balance my checking account.

If anybody wonders why I'm acting like I know so much about Visa merchant processing rules it's because I was responsible for international merchant acceptance for Visa until I retired 2 years ago. I started at Visa when we were tiny - less than 500 people worldwide.

 

[floridagirrl2]

FYI, corporations are charged $$ by the credit card company whenever you try to make a credit card chargeback, even if the chargeback is unsuccessful. I was told by a person at a non-profit health research corporation that they are charged $25 for every chargeback and then additional $$ for every letter the credit card company has to send them regarding the chargeback.

 

[arminnie]

Originally posted by floridagirrl2
I was told by a person at a non-profit health research corporation that they are charged $25 for every chargeback and then additional $$ for every letter the credit card company has to send them regarding the chargeback.

That is correct

 

[beatnik]

Hello all,

I am back in town (at least for the next 12 hours!). Will answer the questions and comments posted previously:

Cheapmom, I felt like I was playing with fire with HWSC because I knew before I joined that they are owned by MWI, a company which has a history of numerous customer complaints. I paid careful attention to what was being said on this board and at similar sites about HWSC and was not sure if the lack of my having heard anything fishy about HWSC was because the entity was new or because they were more reputable than other MWI companies (like Connections).

Wdwfam, more power to you if you remember all you transactions. I admire you for it. We typically charge (and pay off) $1500-$3000 per month, so charges of this magnitude are not atypical for us. You ask "do we automatically start blaming the company or look to ourselves first?" I would like to reply to this that I initially was neither blaming the company nor myself. When the bill came and I recognized charges that were made to the card on a day that I know I made no purchases from that particular company, I contacted the company to ask what the charges were. They told me that they had no record of any such charges, which is what caused me concern that there was some error.

Lewisc, I have no problem with the fact that the purchase were made but no billed to my credit card until 1 week later (nor did I ever state this to be anything but a cause of confusion). And once I learned what the charges were, I of course was completely fine with paying them. You ask if I hadn't noticed that I was billed for the items previously-- the problem was that the actual items were not identified on the charge slip, so it was not possible to figure out whether I had paid them before. You may find HWSC's actions justifed, whereas I do not. No great shakes. Oh yeah, and by the way, once again, I did not call HWSC to dispute any charges, but simply to ask them about charges that were made on a day I knew I had not placed an order with them. When the second person that I spoke with was able to explain what the charges were, I recognized them, thanked the girl for her help and called my credit card company to tell them that the charges were justified.

Ripleysmom, you say that you feel like this is my fault because my recordkeeping was not perfect. Fine, I will conceed that my recordkeeping was not perfect. So perhaps some good advice would be, "Don't join HWSC if your personal recordkeeping is not completely perfect 100% of the time." C'mon, can you honestly think it unreasonable for me to contact HWSC to check on charges that I don't recognize? Do you really think it is fine for them to give me incorrect answers? You feel comfortable doing business with a company that says they "don't make billing mistakes?" Or that thinks you should just pay charges that they themselves don't recognize? That has any problem with your contacting your credit card company to clarify charges that they tell you they did make to your credit card? You may be able to glibly state that the current circumstance is my "fault," and I would disagree with you. If you feel comfortable joining HWSC, great for you! If I had heard a story like this before joined, I would have thought to myself, "Hmm, don't know if I will bother with HWSC to save a few bucks. It sounds like there is a lot to keep up with, I work crazy hours, and I don't think its worth it." So I probably would not have joined, and this type of post would have been helpful to me.

As far as what I'm going to do with HWSC, I don't know how strongly I will push the re-instatement of my membership. There are still a number of membership benefits that I would like to take advantage of, but I am convinced this company is dis-reputable and I really think I'd rather cut my losses. So I will probably not make any further requests that my membership be re-instated. I will probably write a letter of complaint to HWSC and Hotwire, as well as filing a complaint with the State Atty General.

Cheers,

Beatnik

 

[dandave]

Beatnik, I simply do not see that you have anything to complain about.
You called Hotwire to ask "What is this charge on my CC bill for $1000 on 12/12 (for example)."
Hotwire: "I have no idea ma'am. We don't have any record of any purchases on 12/12."

Why? Because you didn't charge anything on 12/12. You charged on, say, 12/05. The person handling your call was answering your question. He did not see that you had purchased anything on 12/12. Obviously he was also ignorant in the ways of CC billing.

If I write out a check for $1000 on 12/20, then I know not to freak out if my bank statement shows that a check for $1000 was posted to my account on 12/28. I keep records.

Your CC company should have run down the list of charges with you, until you and the CC company could have figured out what happened.

You didn't pull out your old statements to find out if you had previously paid the $1000 HWSC charge, apparently. You took the easy way out and asked the CC company to investigate.

You hurt HWSC's reputation by falsely accusing them of false billing. You basically filed a false arrest report, then said "never mind". Now you want to be buddies with HWSC again, so that you can get your rebates. I don't blame them at all for not reinstating your account.

If you had made a little more effort in the first place, then none of this would have happened. JMHO.

 

[beatnik]

dandave,

Again, to all of you who keep perfect records of all credit card transactions that you make, more power to you!

My credit card company WAS able to run down all my charges. But they could not itemize what the specific MWI charges were-- they could only say that $x was charged to your card from MWI on x date.

A point that I have perhaps not been clear enough on is the fact that I could not pull out old statements to see whether I had paid for the items previously because it could not be determined from either my credit card statement, from my first call to HWSC, nor from my call to my credit card company what the charges were FOR. Your charactization of my phone call to HWSC is so very right on-- "I have no idea ma'am. We don't have any record of any purchases on 12/12." But the interesting thing is my take on this is very different from yours-- I think this answer, while it answered the question that I asked, is actually providing very poor service. The answer that I would consider to be good customer service would be, "You are saying that you have two charges on 12/12, one for $750 and one for $250? I see no record of any such charge. Wow, that's a lot of money, I am very concerned that there could be such a discrepency. I am not sure what's going on. I've looked again and cannot find anything. This is pretty worrisome-- let me put you on hold and check with my supervisor." (Pause, while on hold.) "Ok, I'm back now. I talked with my supervisor and what he pointed out is that sometimes charges are not posted to your credit card bill right away and over the Thanksgiving holiday things got a little more delayed than usual. So I have found all the charges that you are asking about and here is what they were for. Do you recognize them? Yes, well great, that's a relief-- I'd hate for there to have been such a large set of charges unaccounted for! Is there anything else that I can help you with today?"

The answers that I initally got from HWSC left me with the impression that there were no charges on my credit card from MWI for the dates in question. As I have stated several other times in previous posts, I called my credit card company to ask if THEY had a record of the charges that HWSC did not-- I did not call to ask my credit card company to investigate or to accuse them of false billing. All I ever told my credit card company was that there are charges to my account listed as "MWI." I do not recognize these charges and MWI says they did not make them. What do I do next? The credit card company's response was that the next step was for them (the CC company) to contact MWI.

It seems to me that you feel the responsibilty should be soley mine to keep track of the transactions that I made with MWI, while I feel that I should be able to call MWI to clarfiy charges I don't recognize. Whatever. You sat tomato, I say tomahto. As a consequence of your "take" on things, you find HWSC's refusal to re-instate my membership reasonable, I feel it to be dis-reputable, as it seems to me a handy way for them to not refund outstanding rebates. Again, whatever. You say potato, I say potahto.

The point of my post is to detail my problems with HWSC so that other may benefit from my experience. I am sure there are many people who are interested in both my problems and your take on it-- all in all, the discourse is beneficial and thanks for taking the time to read my post and to reply for everyone's benefit. I may disagree with you, but am appreciative of your time in discussing the matter.

PS I actually do not want to be buddy-buddy with HWSC (although I do want the rebates that I still maintain I am entitled to!). As I stated in my most recent post, although I initially called HWSC thinking there had just been a misundertsanding and asking them to re-instate my membership, my conversation with the supervisor who stated things like "we don't make billing errors" left me so leery of HWSC that I no longer want my membership re-instated. Instead, I'd like to just cut my losses. I'd rather have them keep my rebates than re-connect them with my credit card number!

Regards,
Beatnik

 

[beatnik]

Hello all, its me again (now replying to my own post!).

I find the various responses to my OP to be very interesting, but I think in my defending myself from those who think me an unreasonable bonehead, I've deviated a bit from the intent of my original post. Which was to point out the problem that I discovered with HWSC.

Say you are dandave and you keep completely perfect records of all credit card purchases. You join HWSC confident that you are assured of having no problems with them, as you will stay on top of everything. And after several months go by, you note a charge that you do not recognize from MWI on your credit card for $50. You pull out all of your records, you check through them, and you confirm that you have no record of such charge. So you call HWCS to discuss the matter. You are very calm, because you are certain it is just an error that will soon be cleared up.

But to your surprise, you are told by a supervisor that HWSC "does not make billing mistakes." HWSC tells you that the $50 charge is not an error. Period. But you are completely sure that HWSC is wrong, because of your perfect records of all transactions. What should you do? You are now in a no-win situation because of course you are not going to pay a $50 charge which was an error. But if you dispute the matter with your credit card company, your membership will be cancelled and any outstanding rebates due you will be forfeited. If your outstanding rebates are more than $50, perhaps you won't pursue this matter with your credit card company. Either way, you lose. There could also be an error in which your membership is cancelled, and HWSC might then tell you (as they told me) that they are unable to re-instate cancelled memberships. Again, you'd be out any refunds due to you.

My initial assumption with HWSC is that they made money by selling you things or from your monthly fee. But now I wonder if it may be that they make a significant percentage of their profit from unpaid rebates. Despite every precaution that you might be willing to take, if there is ever any question with a HWSC charge, you may well forfeit your rebates to get to the bottom of it. This does not seem to me to be the manner of operation of a reputable business.

So before you join HWSC, consider the above. You may be sure that I am a blithering idiot who has brought all of my problems with HWSC down upon myself. But could the above scenario happen to you, even if you kept completely perfect records? What could you do to prevent it? Not much.

Again, my main point is "Buyer Beware." I am sure plenty of people take a chance with HWSC and never have a significant problem. But if you are one of the few who does have a problem, you will have little recourse.

Regards,

Beatnik