A philisophical/moral/legal dilemma

[BlueCross]

Who's at fault?  (besides me, I mean...)

I recently renewed my AntiVirus subscription (yeh, I know, I should just use one of the free ones... but it was the path of least resistance, although I am seriously reconsidering what AV to use).

Anyway, here's the sequence.

1.  I purchased TrendMicro AV online (in US with US credit card).
2.  TrendMicro uses a 'clearing house' or whatever to handle their transactions called Digital River.
3.  Digital River transactions now route through Luxembourg (!) (they didn't used to).
4.  MasterCard charged me a 'Foreign Transaction Fee' because the charge came from non-US source.

wtf??

I blame Digital River; I'm sure they are using the Luxembourg routing to avoid US taxes.

Note that I cannot 'cancel' or 'stop payment' on the Foreign Transaction Fee because the bank ain't gonna cancel one of it's own fees.

TrendMicro is out of the loop (sort of) because they only charged for the product.

Digital River claims this is the way their transactions are handled; end of story (at least, that's what they say).

While only a modest fee ($1.79), I have a feeling this is going to explode when millions of Xmas shoppers find out in January that they have a bunch of dollars charged to their account for a foreign transaction fee when neither they nor their money actually took a footstep outside of the US.

Fucking greedy corporate business heads with no fucking morals or ethics.

[TK]

Hey! these people have the right to rip you off for everything you've got! quit whining!

Seriously though I'm quite sure, mainly because it's one of those "I've not looked in to it for a while but I seem to remember this being the case" kind of things, that all transaction related fees needed to be brought to your attention at time of sale in the UK.  I'm gessing that this isn't the case in the US or just wasn't obvious.

I think it's a moral, and should be leagal, obligation for companies and banks to properly inform you of all aspects of your transaction and our responsibility to remain watchful of the thieving gits.

Of course the world needs to take a leaf out of Icelands book http://crazyemailsandbackstories.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/icelands-amazing-peaceful-revolution-still-not-in-the-news-backstory/  The people are forging thier own way against the "wisdom" of finacial pundits and hounding said pundits out of thier ivory towers and into nice cells.

[The Hanged Man]

Not to sound like a smug self righteous pillock, but was there any "small print?"

My dad once bought £1000 worth of equipment and ended up with PPI attatched to it (this was 10 years ago before the PPI craze). Anywho the box for the PPI was immediatley ticked without his prior knowledge, he was that pissed off that he cancelled the whole transaction.

Well unless you get one of those 2000 page bible telling you what you can and can't legally do with the product's copy right...

[BlueCross]

You smug self righteous pillock!

Uh... no, not really.


Anway...

What's a PPI? 

What's 'immediately ticked'?

Pillock??  Well... I can probably guess that one.

[The Hanged Man]

You smug self righteous pillock!

Uh... no, not really.


Anway...

What's a PPI? 

What's 'immediately ticked'?

Pillock??  Well... I can probably guess that one.

Hmm I presumed that they had PPI in America... maybe they do.

PPI or (payment protection insurance): (Text book definition) "Under a PPI policy, an agreed sum of money is paid out each month to fully cover, or cover a percentage of the payment due on your mortgage or loan etc if you are unable to work."

However, many loans, mortgages and credit cards which came with PPI only told you in the small print.

Most people who took out these loans probably didn't read this print which stated that PPI coverage was a part of the loan and if they had read it probably didn't know what PPI was and wouldn't have investigated it.

Anyway about 12 months ago someone discovered that you can sue companies for "miss soled PPI." So now, day time TV shows (IE when the jobless are watching TV)  hundreds of advertisements made to inform you that you can get compensation if you have had anything with unspecified PPI protection in the last 10 years. They also call you and ask you if you're too stupid to read small print.

Basically it's the "have you had an accident at work and it wasn't your fault?" of this new, wonderful decade of the "screen watchers." (As Don Mclean called them)

[The Hanged Man]

What's 'immediately ticked'?

Hangy done a Derp  : I meant "automatically ticked" as in "they ticked by the shop before the customer even sees it, usually in the hope of fiddling money."

[BlueCross]

"they ticked by the shop before the customer even sees it, usually in the hope of fiddling money."

er...

[JC]

Call or E-mail Trend and threaten to do a charge-back. They will likely cover the 1.79, and it will send a message (assuming other people do the same).

[BlueCross]

I did something similar.

I told them that if they didn't stop using Digital River, or if Digital River didn't stop their weird practice, I wouldn't be renewing my sub.

Very polite, and all that.  I suspect something will happen.

I just saw where some guy went to jail for a $25 million dollar bank fraud.  I worked it out; for $1.79, you would spend three minutes in jail.

[The Hanged Man]

"they ticked by the shop before the customer even sees it, usually in the hope of fiddling money."

er...

*Reads his own post*

*Goes to the phone to book for an emergency lobotomy*

[BlueCross]

*Reads his own post*

*Goes to the phone to book for an emergency lobotomy*

We used to do them in the Vestibule for practically nothing.  As a lure for hotties, it worked out quite dismally.

[Hoopy Frood]

We have PPI equivalent here for both mortgages and credit cards.

However, it's opt-in only. I don't think you can be compelled in any state to buy financial protection insurance, and it's not automatic.

And it works slightly differently between credit cards (unsecured credit) and mortgages (secured credit). Credit cards won't charge you anything as long as you don't carry over a balance between statements. If you do, they take a percentage of what you carry over as the insurance payment.

For mortgages, it's a small percentage of the mortgage balance each month.