National Express account scum fraud

iandrewlawson

Today i booked the coach to get to a from Stansted airpot, i finished my transaction and on the completion page of the checkout there is a display saying, "Claim your £15 cashback when you register"
I thought to myself, that this was a good deal and that because i use the service often it will be worth having an account.

i move forward to the next page and i see that it asks for bank details, i skim through the copy to read that this will take £1 out of my account, alarm bells started going off so i read on and in the small print it is a god awful service for sample of some sort that by entering my details would have charged my account £15 per month to be signed up for.

I am shocked that national express would allow this on their site.

it's a disgrace and i feel sorry for anyone who has signed up to this scum service.

The point in this post is to highlight the error that i almost made so you don't have to.

I contacted their live hep team to express how disappointed i was which you can see below.

18+

Below is my interaction with the live help assistant
Yasir: Hi. My name is Yasir. How can I help?

You: One-time-offer.com/sol7/national_express_uk/
You: this one time offer link that you have on your website

You: why?

Yasir: Hi Andrew, I can't see the link you're sending.

Yasir: It says the page is no longer available.

You: you're fraudulently convincing your customers to give £15 a month to these pirates?

You: you can read the link

You: one time offer, it is your link in the site saving claim your £15 cashback

Yasir: I understand that this is to do with the £15 cashback offered by complete savings.

You: i thought national express was a loyal brand, i regret buying my ticket from you

Yasir: Many apologies for this Andrew. This is a monthly subscription sign up company which rewards it's customers.

You: i guess national express get's a good kick back commission for every sign up don't they

You: yes and national express is happy to have them on their site

You: you better have a word with your managers because this is the kind of !!!!!! stunt that get's you in hot water and you will loose customers for this

You: absolute disgrace, i almost put my payment details in only to read the smaller print telling me that this will charge my account £15 per month

You: its a !!!!ing disgrace, i will no longer be doing business with national express. I really hope you pass this on

Yasir: I'll definitely pass this on for you Andrew. Many apologies.

You: i feel sorry for all of your customers that you have let down by having this on your site so you can make a quick buck, disgraceful.

Yasir: I'll get this passed on to to our business development team too.

Yasir: Would there be anything else I can help with today?

phatbear

So how are you going to get to stansted now?

jackieblack

IIRC it's fairly obvious that it's a third party 'offer' and nothing to do with National Express.
But I've managed to book tickets to/from Heathrow and Stansted on National Express's website on more than one occasion without falling prey to any kind of scam, by avoiding the dodgy looking link

I think Premier Inn have something similar when you book with them too. Again, I managed to avoid clicking on the dodgy looking link there too

pennylane99

Nothing to do with National Express, I have had that pop up on several sites including Expedia and Travelzoo. Just don't click on the link.

sjw64

You dont have to click the link to finish your transaction. Ive seen this on many sites!

Poor Yasir

Alice_Walker

sjw64 wrote: »

You dont have to click the link to finish your transaction. Ive seen this on many sites!

Poor Yasir

This^^

There's no excuse for speaking to somebody like that.

Pollycat

+1 ^^^^

I hardly dare point out that this is not actually relevant to the Overseas Holidays board either (even though travel was to a UK airport).

jpsartre

Sheesh, overreact much? It's just a paid advertisement, I see it all the time on other sites as well. It's hardly worth getting so worked up over and certainly doesn't justify berating a CSR.

PenguinOfDeath

Do you respond to spam emails too? Better had, you might be missing out on millions of Nigerian dolla!

DCFC79

jpsartre wrote: »

Sheesh, overreact much? It's just a paid advertisement, I see it all the time on other sites as well. It's hardly worth getting so worked up over and certainly doesn't justify berating a CSR.

This, way too much of an overactive OP.

OP if you add the Firefox ad blocker.

POPPYOSCAR

Whilst I agree the OP is over reacting I also think this is sharp practice and does catch those that are not so savvy about these things.

Any website that has this goes down in my estimation.