Magazine subscription leads to unauthorized recurring payment
"In 2010, the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act was passed, which prohibited certain activities, most of which had to do with online sites sharing your CC info with third parties.  However, the final part of the act deals with ""negative option"" marketing, which is basically what you're describing - ""We will charge you unless you say no"". It requires three components to allow a negative option: If you did not explicitly enroll in automatic payment, and made the initial purchase online (or made your most recent purchase online, I suspect) then it sounds like this was a violation of this act.  On the other hand, the act isn't terribly careful about defining terms, and is really quite vague in a lot of places, so it's possible they would argue they are not using a 'negative option' scheme but instead simply charging your bill similar to how your phone company might use autopay. If it was not online, then this probably doesn't apply.  Instead, the FTC's rule on Negative Option with regard to sale of goods applies.  Title 16 Part 425 covers this; this law is much less limiting as to what the marketer can do." "You have a subscription that costs $25 They have the capabilities to get that $25 from the card on file if you had stopped paying for it, you re-upping the cost of the subscription was more of a courtesy. They would have considered pulling the $25 themselves or it may have gone to collections (or they could courteously ask if you wanted to resubscribe, what a concept) The credit card processing agreements (with the credit card companies) and the FTC would handle such business practices, but ""illegal"" wouldn't be the word I would use. The FTC or Congress may have mandated that an easy ""opt-out"" number be associated with that kind of business practice, and left it at that."
Businessweek is a magazine. The Atlantic is a magazine. They publish articles, while Vice is an investigative news outlet. So, you're comparing apples to oranges, even if you don't understand that they're not equivalent organizations.  You don't even seem understand how Vice's business works. They're not focused on ad revenue through clickbait. They're focused on content creation for lucrative media deals, which has accelerated Vice's value far faster than the other outlets you mentioned.  Everything you are saying is light on analytical reason, but very heavy on definitive provocative statements. Essentially, you are replying with very low quality posting. So, I'm probably going to stop engaging you; because whether you're a troll or just heavily breathing from the mouth, I suspect that further attempts at reasonable dialogue with you is a waste of my time. Toodles. Additionally my understanding is that a Faster Payment is as good as cash once received. Yes it is but there is a caveat. Read on unauthorized payments on Faster Payments website. Either the sender is fraudulently claiming this was unauthorised, or their bank doesn't have adequate security standards - why is it me who loses out here? Agreed. You should take this up [dispute the action] with your bank asking why your account was closed as there is no fraud from your side. Make sure you do all the follow-up with writing and provide evidence of the trade being genuine. "Your friend probably cannot deposit the check to your U.S. bank account. U.S. banks that I've worked with will not accept a deposit from someone who is not an owner of the account. I don't know why not. If some stranger wants to make unauthorized deposits to my account, why should I object? But that's the common rule.  You could endorse the check, your friend could then deposit it to his own account or cash it, and then transfer the money to you in a variety of ways.  But I think it would be easier to just deposit the check in your account wherever it is you live. Most banks have no problem with depositing a foreign check. There may be a fairly long delay before you can get access to the money while the check clears through the system.  I don't know exactly what you mean by a ""prize check"", but assuming that this is taxable income, yes, I assume the U.S. government would want their hard-earned share of your money. These days you can pay U.S. taxes on-line if you have a credit card. If you have not already paid U.S. taxes for the year, you should make an ""estimated payment"". i.e. you can't wait until April 15 of the next year, you have to pay most or all of the taxes you will owe in the calendar year you earned it." "Along with the commercials for ""frog"" protection from Discover, most credit card issuers provide fraud protection and zero liability for any unauthorized purchases. As was mentioned in one of the comments, many issuers also will allow temporary ""virtual cards"" that can be used in places that may not appear to be as reputable.  Depending on the type of pre-paid card you are using, you're likely paying some form of a fee for it, and you're certainly not taking advantage of the benefits that a credit card can provide, cash back being a big one. There are no annual fee cards out there that get 2%  cash back on every purchase." how the hell is businessinsider NOT included in this ban? That junky site constantly has completely outrageous headlines upvoted to the top over an over again, only to read the article and find out they have sensationalized and essentially re-written content from other sites. Ask your bank or credit union. Mine will let me issue recurring payments to anyone, electronically if they can, if not a check gets mailed and (I presume) I get billed for the postage. "You have no recourse on the spot to do anything to the vendor other than pay the fee, pay cash, or walk away.  If you're on a mission with longer-term horizon than immediate satisfaction, your options will vary by state.  If you're in a state where the fees are legal and the owner is (potentially) violating an agreement with the card company, you can report the vendor to the card company.  They may or may not really care.  If you're in a state where the fee is actually illegal, you'd need to see what options you have with the local authorities. You should keep in mind that if the vendor is violating an agreement that's between the vendor and the card company only, you have absolutely no rights to enforce that agreement.  You only have legal rights if you're a party to the agreement in question or if the law gives you some special rights specific to given circumstances. (The lawyers call this having ""standing."")  Likewise if the vendor is doing something that's not consistent with the agreement between you and the card company, you also have no claim against the vendor (because the vendor is not party to your agreement with the card company), although you might have a claim against the card company." I noticed that as well. It's practically a direct copy paste from the post, even the intro making it sound as if the content was written specifically for medium.    Are both articles written by the same authors? If not this seems somewhat unethical.