Is what this company did to me fraudulant?

Depending on their policies and what you agreed to in the contract, it could potentially be fraud. Especially concerning is the lady’s response of “this was not fraud”. Kind of funny, but yeah that’s kind of a smoking gun if you ask me.

I would definitely file a complaint with the BBB and possibly FTC and maybe even put a call into your state attorney general’s office. They might be able to better guide you from here. It’s only about 9 bucks, so monetarily not that big a deal, but you’re entirely right to be upset about the way they acted and the possible breach of your new account.

It’s probably not fraud. You gave them the card number and the expiration date, that’s all most places need. Verifying the address is an insurance step for most users. You gave them permission to charge the account, but didn’t take any active steps to cancel the agreement.

I just called my bank and told her what FCR.com did and she said that if they were unable to get money from my account, they probably did a skiptrace on me to fine out my whereabouts and then applied the new address to their OWN accounts giving them access to the VISA card. She said in most cases this method is used my law enforcement, debt collectors and bounty hunters to find a people and a warrant is needed to execute a skiptrace. She said she knows nothing about law so she couldn’t tell me if it was illegal per se but said it was defiantely underhanded and shady. She also questioned why they would risk this for $8.50 that wasn’t even a debt. @Adirondackwannabe She answered that too. She said that the card number/expiration and the address and name on the card are considered one and the same. If one detail doesn’t match then it is declined because the original principles with which the card was distributed under are no longer valid. I’m going to report them to the agencies @gambitking recommended.

@Akua Thanks. I’ve been out of banking for a while, so that’s news to me. Then I would say it’s close to fraud if not fitting the legal definition. Sorry you had to go through that crap.

I did a google search with the words: Freecreditreport.com and fraud. Wow! These people are regular thieves.
What part of Free don’t you understand? Didn’t an alarm bell go off in your head when they asked for your credit card? Why on earth would you ever agree to pay for this monthly “service”?
Go after them. Here is the web address to do that.

Read the Wikipedia article about this company’s deceptive practices. Report them.

They were wrong to do that, but you should have canceled their service.

Yea my fault @LuckyGuy I’m always a bit too trusting. But like hubby pointed out it could have been a lot worse. They could have fleeced me for hundreds! lol. @marinelife you are absolutely correct, I should have canceled . I didn’t know they would find a loophole to get an $8 membership fee.

Ever heard of cross-referencing? This is a system where they look for you in various accounts. in order to collect their money. This is how they found you and your new address and card number.

Is it legal? It depends on what you agreed to in the beginning. They tape record everything and this is their backup to action they have taken.

I would say it’s not fraud, it’s just a slimy way of enforcing what you agreed to.

Hey, @Akura Don’t beat yourself up over this. You are the victim of deceptive practices.
They are the ones at fault here.

They were the ones sued by Federal Trade Commission for deceptive marketing tactics. They were the ones who had to pay fines.
They are the ones investigated by the Florida Attorney General for violating Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act..
They are the ones MSNBC.com called “misleading”, “deceptive” and a “scam”.
They are the ones identified as a scam by ConsumerFraudReporting.org.

Now it is up to you to help other people not make the same mistake. By asking this question you have helped already.
Please let us know how you make out. Be sure to publicize the results in as many places as possible.

Thanks for that @LuckyGuy. I was kind of beating myself up. But check this out: Hubby just text me that he JUST recieved an email from FCR.com saying: “this is your second notice. Please update your payment info. to avoid account termination”. This statement leads people to believe that they will cancel your account if you don’t take action right?
This is the same email they sent to me. But what they don’t tell you is that if you don’t update it, they will find your new info and keep charging you ANYWAY. @john65pennington whether you call it cross-referencing or skiptracing the point is the same. I did not owe them a debt. They had no reason to “find” me for $8 when the email they sent me said they would terminate the account if “I” didn’t update the account. But I get your meaning. Just left a BBB complaint and it has plenty of company. This company has over 5200 complaints in the last year and 492 in the last 12 months. Sickening. They are being investigated by everyone.

@Akua Did you just say FreeCreditReport.com has over 5200 complaints in the last year and 492 in the last 12 months. Sickening. They are being investigated by everyone.?
I thought that’s what you said. Apparently the Attorney General considers FreeCreditReport.com a fraud and scam too.

And now search engines will also say it.

Oh @LuckyGuy I meant to say that they have 5234 complaints in last 3 years and 492 complaints this year alone.

They should give you back the $8.50. Their last communication to you said that they could not charge you, giving you a reasonable expectation that they would not. Then they did.

If they want your extra $8.50 so badly that they want to risk everyone hating them, then it’s a dearly-stolen $8.50. I hate them on your behalf.

They are counting on the fact that people conflate them with:

www.annualcreditreport.com

This is the site run by the three major credit reporting agencies and it is free TOTALLY free.

This is in compliance with Federal law which states that you are entitled to one free credit report per year from each of the three agencies.

Although many people are familiar with that law, they’re not always aware of the correct Official web address and end up on the scam site instead because they advertise so heavily and that musical jingle stays in many peoples heads.

I can’t imagine why people would pay for something that’s free. I know these sites all offer updates and other crap but basically that other stuff is fluff.