A U.S. Senate committee has been investigating a huge internet retail scam that’s been foisted on consumers by normally trustworthy sites.

Let’s say that you are shopping at one of your favorite online retailers. You decide to make a credit card purchase and when you finish checking out, you see an offer to save money.

(image credit U.S. Senate)

Apparently, all you need to do is fill in your email address and click a button. Now you’ve entered an agreement to pay some third-party website, which you’ve never heard of, several dollars a month via your credit card. This money keeps coming out every month until you notice it on your credit card statements.

How do they get your credit card info? Some very popular websites are giving them the information while you check-out during a purchase at their site. They get a kick-back for referring you and it adds up to millions of dollars. Classmates.com made over $70 million dollars this way.

Here’s how it works:

Here are the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly:

The Good:

Class Action Lawsuit in 2006 is settled in 2009.

U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation – investigation involving Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue.

The Bad:

Webloyalty, Affinion, and Vertrue – I won’t even give you links to their sites. These are the sneaky guys who bill you every month for services you’ve never used.

The Ugly:

This image contains a list of popular web sites that cared more about making money than about your security. This is very ugly.

(image credit – U.S. Senate)

Thanks to my friend Bob C, who emailed this to me.

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