![]() The list is varied, ranging from a small company that’s sending out $500 gift cards with a catch, to a magazine empire that’s generating complaints through the way it signs up new subscribers. Then we contacted the 10 companies involved to see if the warnings were warranted. We’re publishing 9 of the 10 here – the tenth requires additional investigation. ![]() To see if the system really works, we asked Samid to share with us 10 potentially problematic charges that BillGuard warned consumers about in the first quarter of 2012. BillGuard also monitors other complaint-related websites and social media services for signs that a company might be misbehaving.Ĭustomer surveys show that about 90 percent of credit card users fail to scan their bills carefully each month, so a proactive alert system is essential, he said. Samid and partner Raphael Ouzan, a financial data security expert, set out to build a system that would harness “collective consumer knowledge” and allow credit card users to share this kind of information with each other. “Two years ago, I found out I was paying $10 a month for a post-transaction coupon scam after my wife bought concert tickets,” he said “When I Googled the charge, I saw countless blog posts, complaint boards and tweets screaming about the same "hidden fee." Turns out millions were duped by the same scam and were complaining about it online and to their banks. As soon as enough consumers say there’s a problem with a charge, all BillGuard members are warned and a suspicious-report web page is generated.įounder Yaron Samid, a startup vet who was part of the team behind, said he got the idea for BillGuard after he nearly was taken in by an automated fee that appeared on his credit card bill. Members sign up and let BillGuard scan their credit card statements for potentially fraudulent charges, billing errors or hidden, unexpected fees. The firm then asks consumers if they wish to tag the charge as suspicious.
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