Check your bankcard statements EVERY month! We discovered a charge yesterday for $14.95 from a company called UMG MINE that neither of us recognized. On checking our records, I found that this charge had been on our bill every month starting with March of last year.
Both DH and I thought the other had bought something from UMG, but this was not the case. Seems that when we ordered a knife from Chef's Catalog last March, this company included a packet with a $20 gift certificate that automatically signed us up for a "discount buyers club." In order to opt out, you had to send the packet back. This type of marketing is illegal in our state of Washington, so we called the company--we had to talk to four different people before we got the whole story and could tell them that their practice is not legal in this state; they finally agreed to refund the 11 months of charges on our bill.
I hasten to add that we did not receive ANYTHING from this company in exchange for this money; I think it's a scam. It doesn't speak well of our attention to detail that this went unnoticed for such a long time, but you can bet we will scrutinize our bill every month from here on out, and you should, too.
I went on a public site concerned with this company and found others who had been victimized the same way. I also went on Chef's Facebook site and alerted them to what was going on. I can't believe they know what's going on with this company or agreed to be a part of these shady business practices; howver, if they don't fix it, everyone who orders from them is going to get "taken" by UMG.
