In fairness to Complete Savings...

I received the following e-mail from Complete Savings, and they have refunded the money they removed from our bank account in full. So no harm, no foul on their part--but let this serve as a cautionary tale to all of us (even those of us, ahem, me, who think we are too savvy to fall into something like this!). Thank you, Complete Savings, for making it right.

Dear Kristi:

I recently reviewed your post on your blog about our membership program, Complete Savings and I'd like to give you an official response on behalf of our company to be sure that your concerns and questions are fully addressed. I checked our records and confirmed that your membership was cancelled on August 28, 2009 when you contacted our customer service department. At that time a refund of the membership charges was processed. These refunds should appear as credits in your account.

At this time, we'd like to provide you some information on how the membership was enrolled. Our records show that on June 2, 2009 when you completed an online transaction at www.pizzahut.com you enrolled in Complete Savings by clicking on a $10 cash back award and then entering your email address twice and then clicking the "YES" button on the enrollment form. Directly above the section for entering email addresses, the text advised you that you were authorizing the secure transfer of your name, address and credit or debit card information to Complete Savings for billing and benefit processing. I've attached a copy of this page for your review. Immediately after accepting the membership offer you were presented with a membership acknowledgement page. Within 10 minutes of the enrollment, a membership confirmation email with details on how to use the membership was sent to your email address. We sent six more emails to your email address from June 2 through August 1, 2009 with details of the membership. The one that was sent to you on June 19, 2009 advised you that your 30-day free trial period was ending in 14 days and that you would be charged if you did not cancel the membership before the trial ended.

We hope this resolves this matter to your satisfaction and demonstrates that proper authorization was obtained to charge your credit card. If you have further questions regarding this matter or suggestions for improving our service, please contact us at consumeraffairs@webloyalty.com.

Regards,
person's name here
Webloyalty Consumer Affairs
Complete Savings