Why do some big companies feel the need to rip people off (review, bills)

[Severs]

Or in my case, attempt to. Reader beware this shall be long.

About 8 months ago I got on a phone call that was in between a friend of mine and DirecTV to allow him to use one of my debit cards to activate his service. At the time of the phone call both my friend and myself were informed that this was to be a one time use, a hold for $1 that would fall off and never complete just to activate his account. Approximately 2 weeks later I notice a charge on my card from DirecTV in the amount of $13.xx, acting immediately i contacted my bank and informed them of the unauthorized charge on the account and asked for it to be reversed, in the meantime my friend contacted DirecTV and put me on via a three way call and the person we spoke to apologized and told us this should not have happened and promised to remove my card from the account and have the charges reversed and it noted that my card was not to be used again. At this time I contacted my bank again letting them know DirecTV was reversing said charges and removing my card, and I told them not to cancel the card as the situation was resolved.

Or so I thought. Fast forward to about a month ago I see another charge on my account from DirecTV. This time in the amount of $809.20 as my friend was past due on his account and they charged him an early term fee when he called to cancel the service. I immediately contacted my bank and informed them of this charge and not willing to take chances for the future canceled the card as well as put in a dispute. I attempted to contact DirecTV as well to talk to someone, but because my name was not on the DirecTV account they refused to talk to me. I decided to see what my bank would do for me and just waited a while. DirecTV finally responded to my dispute and attempted to claim that because they informed my friend via his bills that the card used to activate his account would remain on there in case of past due amounts that they were legally able to take my money. Once again my friend and I got on the phone with DirecTV to talk to someone and she (a manager) spouted the same thing, that I should have been informed that it would remain with the account until the account was closed, and that my friend should have received notification of this as well. I spoke up and said, "Regardless of what you may or may not have advised my friend it has no effect on me as I myself was informed that it was a one time use and I had not been contacted via mail, phone or email, which you have as I gave that when I authorized the one time use of my card. Therefore you have no legal grounds to take this money and I will be contacting my bank again. I expect this money to be returned to my account."

Fortunately for me after my bank reviewed my statements vs what DirecTV was claiming they decided that DirecTV was in the wrong for this situation and promptly reversed all charges from DirecTV. It just baffles me that they thought they could just get away with this without someone fighting it. Had I known this would happen I would never have allowed the use of my card, or at least would have canceled the card after the first $13, leaving their system with essentially a giant middle finger when they would have tried to pull the $809.20. Sorry for the rant, it has just been a big stress I really didn't need, I am really glad the whole thing is over with.

[old_cold]

Originally Posted by Severs

I would never have allowed the use of my card, .

Most important part of the post.
It's your card, guard it carefully. Don't let someone else's problems become yours.

[NHDave]

Originally Posted by old_cold

Most important part of the post.
It's your card, guard it carefully. Don't let someone else's problems become yours.

This, I would never let my account be used for anyone other than me, you're just asking for trouble down the road. I also don't allow automatic payments from my account.

On a tangent, I refied my car loan 2 years ago to lower the payment, when finalizing the guy says, ok we need your bank account info for the automatic payments. When I replied that there would be no automatic payments he said it was their policy, and I said my policy overrides their policy and got up to walk out, their policy quickly changed.