OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I cant believe this!! I have just set up my online banking as i am soooo bad at keeping track and seen i had been charged £14.95 to REWARDS NOW.COM. I thought it was odd so tried to find the website, which might i add seems completely fake!!! I rang my back who informed me it is a suscription but could not help me further as fraud office and main banking team closed. I got my old bank statements out and low and behold i have been payng this since MARCH!!!!!!!!!! I was mortified thinking what could it be??? I googled the site and up came this page with all your comments and i cant believe i have managed to be 'scammed' after all the years i have been so careful!!
I do NOT recall seeing this so called pop up box when applying for my credit report back in March but even so from my knowledge of law and people rights surely we are entitled to this money back. Any pop up that appears on a 'secured' website is under some connection surely? Wouldnt that mean that the responsiblity lies with the Credit Expert website management?? Thats why these big companies have "website watchers" to keep an eye on this sort of behaviour and to agree/disagree its partnership usage?? In my eyes most of you and myself sent out requested email to cancel what we had signed up for so we would not accur any charges but this has not been so!!!! Second to that what about our banks??? If i buy something of paypal or a river island a huge padlock page usually appears stating this may be an untrustworthy site and i have to enter a password....why didnt this appear for the REWARDS NOW if i entered my bank details like they say i did??

Lets all get on to WATCHDOG and see what we can do and if we cant get anything back, at least stop this happening to others!!!

Also.... if this REWARDS NOW is real then what rewards can we get??? Maybe we could get our pennies back throough other means?????

Well thanks for posting as i feel much better now having waffled on and knowing that i am not alone with this problem :) xxx

Hi, I too was caught out when I applied for a free trial with Credit Expert. In fact I already had a subscription with them for my present address but I was declined an Egg card which was offered at 0% for transfer balances and as nothing showed up on my credit reference for my own address and I own another house with my mother which is credit reference linked to my own house I decided to check out the credit reference for this in case there was anything amiss there that I should know about. For this reason I applied for the free trial to check my other address out but when nothing showed up I immediately cancelled my subscription and this was confirmed in an email from Credit Expert. No debits were taken from my bank account and I had no more thought on the matter. Yesterday i logged onto my on line bank account ato check my recent statement nd was amazed to see 2 debit card transactions dated 20th May and 18th June taken by Rewardsnow.co.uk. I checked further back but there were no other debits fortunately. The time line would coincide with the free trial application. Anyway I tried to contact Rewardsnow.co.uk but the tel no. given on their website was unobtainable. However I rang the number given by Helen1977 and got through and got the subscription cancelled. The customer service agent was helpful and pleasant. However she at first could not locate my account as I had no membership no. (thats because I didnt know I was a member lol) by trying to key in my postcode. The penny dropped that it may be connected with Credit Expert, and I gave her the postcode of my mother's house and bingo there was my details. I asked how they obtained my address and card details and she asked me if I had ever applied for a "free trial" with a credit ref agency or anything similar. I said yes Credit Expert and when I asked her if they got my information from them, she said yes. I know I should have checked what I was signing up to but as I already had an account and as this is a supposedly reputable company used by most of the leading financial institutions and retailers I could not believe their practices and T&C would be so dodgy to put it mildly. I received an email to confirm cancellation from Rewardsnow. I have also cancelled my long standing subscription with Credit Expert and sent an email advising that this is because of a serious breach of trust. Hopefully by telephoning the no. given by Helen1977 others will also get sorted out. No more "trial subscriptions" for me, for sure.

Farfrae:

Of course you're right about the way these organisations are duping people and what our so called regulators are letting then get away with.

It's the same with the way that the recurring payments rules are not being policed. As the CCCs would have it you have to get the company to cancel the agreement. Not quite, any company taking out a recurring agreement must allow cancellation, online if taken out online.

Regarding the £2 statutory report advice, please see beneath that and the effect it would have on the "free" report merchants and their £29.99 per month recurring "scams".

Jalexa:

I think the point people have been making here is that they didn't intend to or had no idea that they were actually subscribing to these multi-headed alternatives. And, personally, after the arrogant way Credit Expert handled my own case, I have no intention to give even a legitimate credit reference agency 2p, yet alone £2, for information held about me.

Farfrae.

windbreaker:

HighCreditScore who claimed to be affiliated with Skipton Building Society

Well not exactly sure what is meant by "affiliated". What is known is that HighCreditScore provide credit report data from Call Credit. Call Credit is owned by.......Skipton Building Society.

Remember statutory credit reports are available for £2 without the risk of signing up for expensive subscriptions.

I was also duped into a free trial of HighCreditScore who claimed to be affiliated with Skipton Building Society, so it felt safe. When signing up, the forms continued to a second set of forms which appeared to be a continuation of the same, but it was in fact RewardsNow. I received two e-mails with lots of text, and in the middle of it were the costs. Shock horror, £19 per month for one and £15 for the other. I immediately followed the instructions to cancel. Highcreditscore sent an e-mail to confirm, Rewardsnow did not.

I signed in to the sites and there are screens to cancel. You have to surf around a bit to find them. The Highcreditscore presented a yes/no choice with no obvious answer displayed to what they meant. I selected the no which was the right choice as the yes was in fact do not cancel. The rewardsnow was clearer and displayed a message that an e-mail was sent, but it was not received. In both cases I made a screenshot of the confirmation, and saved them for my credit card company.

I telephoned Highcreditscore and confirmed cancellation, and rewardsnow and followed their instructions.

I sent an e-mail to the sending e-mail for rewardsnow, but they were invalid. I sent another to the e-mails for canellation provided, and copied to both Highcreditscore and rewardsnow. I received replies to my spam confirming cancellation.

All the replies were prefectly professional and imply that I have been successful.

I called my credit card company and blocked payments, and complained to the Skipton Building Society.

I hope it has worked, but interestingly I have now started receiving a string of phishing e-mails requesting my banking details. I believe it is no coincidence.

i think it is absouletly disgusting with credit expert i signed up to this company for my credit check gave all my details and i remember seeing the bit about the rewards now i ignored this as was not intrested and clicked next step didnt think nothing of it nor would anybody.

I recieved an email from credit expert then about 10 minutes later i had another email from this REWARDS NOWS was annoyed as i know didnt agree to this purely because i wouldnt be able to afford the monthly fee anyway.

I have cancelled both credit expert and rewards now but if it cancels before any payments come out i dont know especially with this rewards now by what people are posting.

I Experienced excactly the same just a few days ago with amazon signed up to pay a certain amount to be aligable for free delivery as i just to order a lot and still pay for the postage... but i was a bit worried when i saw these Rewards Now offer being part of signed up to amazon very sneaky... and am furious that a company like amazon would even be sly enough to pull a trick like that.

Im very cautious of sites now and am always looking out for this rewards now scam and i strongly pledge for others to be aware. These companies will cost you a lot of expence if do not becareful read the small print and check your bank statements on a regular basis longer you leave it the bank will not refund the money.

A last word on this from me. Credit Expert referred to a company called 'Highcreditscore.co.uk' in association with Rewards Now. I'd never heard of and hadn't mentioned this group, and initially ignored the reference, thinking that CE might have understandably got cases mixed up. However, upon Googling I found that Highcreditscore share the same PO Box address in Edgware, Mdx and are probably the same company. I'd never seen Highcreditscore's website either, but at least there is a 'cancel membership' option (albeit in classic small print) that one can action in writing and refer to legally later if the need arises. That option btw is hidden behind a very reasonable-sounding & flashy service interface. This whole sorry episode underlines the need for vigilance against being 'sharked' and Jalexa's point about there being no such thing as a free lunch.

Jalexa:

I know about the Credit Expert membership fee. Rewards Now explicitly stated by telephone and in an e-mail that there is such a screen. The only time I have ever entered account information directly onto any PC was for the Credit Expert 'service'. I relayed RN's reply to Credit Expect, which is why I find CE's denial and general nonchalant attitude infuriating, and actually quite insulting.

I suggest that anybody else finding themselves unwittingly subsidising RN addresses the directors' office at Credit Expert directly. This might, just, persuade someone that it is not paranoia or incompetence on the victim's part. £2? For myself, I may have insolvency problems but I am no longer willing to help pay the salaries of staff of credit reference agencies, let alone bogus companies.

Farfrae:

I'm afraid something doesn't add up here. The Experian CreditExpert monthly fee is £6.99 not £29.95.

The £29.95 is indicative of another service provider based in Edgware with several web portals which provides "membership" at £29.95 and provides CallCredit information. I do not believe you accessed this directly via Experian Credit Expert which is why they deny there is a screen, though I fully accept you believe you did.

Again for the benefit of others looking forward, don't be seduced by the prospect of "free". Most people understand there is no such thing as a free lunch. The £2 statutory credit report is a perfectly adequate credit report, obtainable directly from each of the 3 Credit Reference Agencies. For most people once or twice a year is sufficient.

The point is that account details were NEVER given to Rewards Now, only to Credit Expert on their supposedly 'safe' system. Credit Expert's conduct towards me makes their accolade as 'business of the year' ring distinctly hollow in my ears (unless the prefix 'Pontius Pilate' was somehow missed off), and I certainly will not patronise them and fund their rudeness again.

Incidentally, since updating I have been approached by someone else who had similar experiences with Rewards Now, but whose credit card company agreed to refund after being told that their customer had never signed up for this nonsense. She also found the telephone number given for this supposedly legit company given is out of order.

Avoid Rewards Now like the plague.

Farfrae:

The only advice I want to add for the benefit of others looking forward is never give a credit card number or the 16 digit debit card number of your bank account for a service you expect to be cancellable at no cost. You cannot stop recurring payments when you have provided the 16 digit number.

It's common that Direct Debit details are requested, ie sort code and 8 digit account number for these "free" offers. That's OK, because you can cancel the Direct Debit arrangement by informing (only) your bank and also compel your bank to refund "immediately" any debit for which the required notice was not received.

Hi Helen,

I am the author of the original posting on this. I have been in contact with Rewards Now and Credit Expert from Experian. Rewards Now insisted that a registration screen for their service appears upon competing the Quick Credit Score which needs to be completed and submitted. I saw no such screen and submitted no such agreement. Credit Expert insisted that 'there is no such screen' but passed the buck to me, saying it was a matter purely between me and Rewards Now and they would not get involved in further correspondence. The director's office rep at Credit Expert, I will add, was not only inaccurate in his recollection of the correspondence we'd actually had, but also blase and, actually, incredibly rude. I've refrerred the whole sorry saga to the Financial Ombudsman, and impressed pretty firmly on Rewards Now that they shouldn't take money from my account again - successfully, I hope. However, the fact remains that my £30 has disappeared for an unsolicited and undelivered service, with almost certainly no chance of ever getting it back. I'd advise all consumers to keep a very close eye on their bank accounts, and to give these unaccountable and complacent credit agencies as much of a wide berth as possible - because you certainly won't get any help from them if you get ripped off. "Free trial", my eye.

Hi I'm in similar boat. I may have forgotton to sign up for the free trial - but I never received an email confirming my 'purchase' and I certainly didn't mean to sign up for Rewards Now. I telephoned my credit card company and it has been reported to their fraud department - but I have heard nothing.

£29.95 was debited twice from my account on or about the same date and I had a mysterious debit of £40.19 from an ICT books store - which certainly couldn't have authorised. I telephoned their number 0845 026 1098 to speak to someone and was told my account was frozen. But I still don't understand what my money has paid for because I haven't received any emails from them.

They said that they would send out an email confirming my cancellation and I argued about not receiving an email confirming my 'purchases'. The reply was perhaps it had gone to the junk/trash section and one was sent on the 22 May but I couldn't go back as far as 22 May. There are reports on MoneySavingExpert.com also about 'Quick Credit Score' scams that other people have fall prey to.

I have telephoned my credit card company twice asking them to make sure that these companies are blocked from accessing my credit card in future and they have promised to re-issue me with a new card number and stop the old one.

I might contact my cc company again a few times to find out if they have found anything - but I feel really stupid about this and like I should have know better.

I found your thread by typing 'rewards now' on google.

H

Early last month I took out, and almost immediately cancelled, a ‘free trial’ with Credit Expert from Experian. I did this by necessity, as I needed to access my credit report and score. Last week, upon checking my bank statement, I noted that some company called Rewards Now had just debited £29.95 from my account on 1 June. This came as a total surprise. I had never heard of, let alone had dealings with or contacted this group. Upon enquiring to Rewards Now, it transpired that they had obtained my details and apparent assent to debit my account when I registered with Credit Expert. I do not recollect giving my consent to any other company piggybacking on their website to debit my account when registering with Credit Expert. If I had not spotted the debit it would have continued on my monthly basis. The rep cancelled further debits on my request, but informed me that as I had not cancelled within the time ‘window’ they were unable to refund the £29.95 already taken. This is pretty outrageous, and highly dubious logic - as several weeks had transpired between my registering and cancelling and the actual debit. As far as I am concerned Rewards Now's behaviour is little short of theft. Is it legal? Thanks.