Rewards First

cosm50

Here's the letter that I wrote today to Rewards First. It's self explanatory (apart from my stupidity in not checking my credit card payments!). XXXX isn't my girlfriend's actual name...it's quite catchy though:

[FONT=&quot]"Dear Rewards First[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Until today I had never heard of your company. However, my partner, recently (21 April 2012) received an e-mail from Rewards First informing her that her monthly subscription fee would increase from £17.95 to £20.95. She was unaware of the fact that she was a Rewards First member and searched through her credit card statements to find out when and to whom payments were being made. She could find nothing about Rewards First.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]It turns out that Rewards First had been taking money from MY account every month since April 2010 – and I am most definitely not a member! Nor have I authorised Rewards First to take money from my account.[/FONT]
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[FONT=&quot]Further investigation linked my partnerl’s ‘membership’ to Flybe plane tickets which she had purchased using my credit card. She had been sent an e-mail – which I have appended - (forwarded to her junk mail) informing her that she had signed up with Rewards First.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Nowhere in this e-mail is MY credit card mentioned; indeed, nowhere in this e-mail (or in subsequent e-mails from Rewards First) am I mentioned. Yet it is from my account that money is being taken.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I contacted your company (13.15: 3/05/12) and a representative informed me that XXX had signed up for Rewards First whilst purchasing airline tickets. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]He accepted that she might not have been aware of this - and that I was certainly not aware of it. He agreed to cancel [/FONT][FONT=&quot]XXXX’s membership and refund my last eleven months’ payments. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I told him that since I had not signed up for Rewards First and that neither XXXX nor I had availed ourselves of any of Rewards First’s services I expected a full refund of money paid from my account to Rewards First from April 2010 (which I calculate to be £361.90). I said that I was happy to take the matter up with the Small [/FONT][FONT=&quot]Claims Court (using evidence from Money Savings Expert and The Mirror websites as well as other forums online) if[/FONT][FONT=&quot] this was not possible. He told me that I needed to write directly to you – and so I have. I have also e-mailed you. I would be grateful if this matter could be expedited within 7 days."[/FONT]

I await their reply with keen anticipation - but I am alarmed that a 'reputable' company such as Flybe countenances this sort of 'piggy-backing'.

HildaS_2

Yep - they got me too.

Can't believe I've been so stupid as to take this long to spot it. I think they got me back in feb/mar 2011 when i bought flights through Netflights. Apparently I clicked on a banner offering some money off but I would NEVER have entered my credit card details in response to clicking on an advertising banner. I can only think they got my card information through the flight booking. Rewards first don't even have my correct email address.

My credit card company is opening a dispute and has changed my card for me.

Interestingly I've just found that Rewards first's 'parent' is Adaptive Affinity which was looked into by the OFT and last year has a ruling against it (see OFT Case Reference: Adaptive Affinity - CRE-E/25810). In particular, the OFT identified the following concerns:
1. Not making it clear to consumers when they were being signed up to a service, and when they would be charged for a service.
2. Failing to provide sufficiently clear information to consumers about the terms of the contract.
3. Failing to operate procedures sufficient to review advertising material produced and circulated by partners and affiliates on its behalf and to control the conduct and actions of those partners.
4. Incorporating potentially unfair terms in some of the standard terms and conditions of its membership schemes.

It remains to be seen whether or not I can get my money back but what a horrid feeling this is to be conned out of over £200.

missV

Eek! I've just clicked on a first rewards banner on flybe. I didn't fill out any of my details.

Does this mean that I've signed up? What do I do now?

SYLVIEANGEL

Having just found out that I have had over £103 taken out of my account since October last year I find that I somehow joined this cash back site. It was thru claiming £15 cashback after booking Trainline tickets. I now see from your site that this was happening a couple of years ago..... it is still happening so please tell your member to beware. I am a pensioner on pension credit and would not have signed up for anything costing £10 month as I don't use cashback sites. The last three months they even charged £11.25 quoting an extra charge of £1.25!! for what? My account has now been cancelled but cannot get my money back.

tackleberry-lewis

Hello all, i too have been screwed over by this lot, paying £14.95 since October last year. They tell you that they have sent you emails, this is goes straight in to your spam which no one ever checks. End of the day, they are there to screw us over, which is what they do!!!
I have since spoke to my bank (santander), they agreed with me that this is fraud, they cancelled my card for me and will pay the money i'm owed from October. Simple enough. We all just need to be that bit more careful!!!

Romulus

I am seething about this, I too was duped by Rewards First aka Adaptive Affinity, in June I booked a flight to Jersey with ....you guessed - FlyBe. Somewhere at the end of the booking process I was offered a £10 discount if I clicked on a banner to join what appeared to be a regular flyers discount scheme, with the option to cancel in the first 30 days. I innocently assumed FlyBe would apply the £10 discount and send me a confirmation email with all the Ts & Cs giving me a date by which to cancel to avoid paying a monthly subscription. I monitored my inbox for a month but did not receive anything that looked as though it was from FlyBe, or that mentioned a discount scheme. 2 months down the line I noticed a payment of £19.95 on my credit card statement to something called Rewards First, one in July, then one in August. There was no other identifying feature on the payment, so I called my credit card company (Cahoot). They were quite helpful but could not tell me who the company was or what the payment was for. As others have found you need to search on the internet to find out their contact details and eventually I called their number and managed to get the payments stopped. They refused to refund the money they had helped themselves to from my credit card though. So for the pleasure of parting with £80 I have had absolutely zero benefit from this bunch of scammers as I did not receive a membership number without which you cannot use the website. I'm determined to bring this to the notice of as many people as possible including my MP and the OFT. As a contrast I also signed up to Experian recently, their process was a model of good practice, making it easy to contact them and sending reminder emails so you know exactly what you are signed up to, highly recommended.

bel62

I got caught out on Bon Prix.....its SO deceitful. Just sent them a letter telling them I wont be buying from them until they disassociate themselves from these crooks .Relatively easy getting refund .....£30 of £190 straight back following return of form, ...the rest?? still waiting....that was 2 weeks ago. I was told that Deidre was the lady that dealt with the refunds,. which are 'not very many' (so why the long wait??) I suggest Deidre gets some help in her one woman department, shes in for a busy time!

Biggleseric

I realise this is quite an old thread however I must report that First Rewards are still up to their old tricks.
I have just realised that this company have been helping themselves to my money every month since 2010. I realise I have been foolish for not noticing until now but First Rewards response has been appalling.
My credit card company, MBNA, put me through on the phone to First Rewards, who claimed that I clicked on something whilst buying a FlyBe ticket in 2010. I certainly did not knowingly do this. They then claim that they sent me emails. The email address they quoted is the correct address but these emails were not ever received. All my mail, including spam, has been searched. The amount they were taking each month was £14.99.
They went on to claim that they recently increased the monthly subscription to £17.99 a month and emailed me to tell me this. Again, I have no such email.
They told me that they would send me evidence of all of this (by email!) - this was 3 weeks ago. Not surprisingly this did not arrive either. I phoned them again yesterday and was told that they would once again email the information to me but their office closes this afternoon, for 2 weeks, so they might not be able to get it out to me. Surely it should just be a case of resending an email? However, I pointed out that their emails clearly are not arriving so perhaps they could use old fashioned snail mail, but apparently this is not possible for an internet company.
Mu bank tell me that this month's payment has not gone out, which is small consolation for the hundreds of pounds that have been stolen from me over the last 4 years. I consider this to be a criminal matter and am seeking legal advice.
I know you hear it all the time, but really do check your credit card statements. If you already have a legitimate payment going out each month, it's so easy for another smaller one to be hidden. Don't get caught out as I have.