We rented once from Avis, in 2000. By mistake we deposited one of their $4 checks which automatically signed us up for a AAA type service for a year [they used our credit card from 2000]. Never send a membership card. I didn't catch the charge. This August they did it again and I caught it. They returned the money for this year[$69.99]. It's too late for last year's charge, of course. Our bank says that this is not a fraud as we endorsed the check. We think it is a fraud, a scam and unethical. We will NEVER rent from Avis again so do they win in the end? Has anyone else had this experience?

You have GOT to read those checks before you deposit!! This isn't a scam. I get one from AT&T every other month or so. If I deposit the $75 check (would I think this is free money with no strings attached), the signature on the check authorizes me to switch carriers. The Avis check is the same thing.

You don't get free money, period.

Dan, you're right about reading the check before endorsing it. But we never gave Autovantage permission to use our credit card number. They got that number from the one time that we rented a car from Avis.

I'm getting AT&T checks regularly, for different amounts since I've dropped them as long distance carrier.

Your message is quite unclear.
Who is Autovantage?
You didn't 'catch' a $70.00 charge for 2 years?
You endorsed a check without reading what it was for?


I'm not following why you think something illegal has occurred.
No one forced you to authorize a check (and when you sign those types of checks there's often a statement included which says you are also agreeing to a release of information).

Hopefully you realize that your signature is a legal endorsement and that you need to be careful where and when you sign your name.

Did you really think they were giving you money just to be nice?

Yesterday I got a recorded message on my answering machine about a free trip I've won. I erased it. Do you really think if I called and accepted this "free trip" I wouldn't be billed for something I don't want? You may call it a scam, but it is common advertising practice these days. Like others I get all kinds of those checks. I find it hard to believe that people really do cash them and think they're getting something for nothing. Of course when you endorse it you are signing up for something that will be billed to you. It's that simple.

No, I didn't want something for nothing-the little $4 check just somehow got into several that my husband was hurrying to the bank to deposit. Endorsing the check was our fault but that was a signiature not a credit card number with permission to not only charge once but again, without contact or permission, one year later.

With regard to your last statement, many mail order and phone schemes will use your one time endorsement to initiate a perennial billing cycle.

Like Columbia House music (used to do or still does) and Time-Life books, and so on.
You ordered a 'free sample' of their product and then you were automatically billed for more product UNTIL YOU CANCELLED.
Once they hooked your endorsement they had the right to bill you forever until you told them to stop.
Lots of marketing schemes still work this way. It's very common and very legal...provided you give them the initial endorsement.

If you had read the conditions on the check before signing, you probably would have learned that by signing your name to the check, you authorized Avis to charge your credit for the membership fee (or whatever they called it)/

You're the limit, daph. You signed a check and cashed it without reading the fine print and now you're blaming someone else for your stupidity? Have you been living under a rock for the last 20 years?

Well, I guess anyone reading this thread will have learned two things:

Never sign and deposit a promotional check and certainly never admit to it on Fodors.

peterboy,

Admiting it was OK. It was complaining about it.

Keith

I stayed at a Days Inn (like Avis, a division of Cendant) several years ago and for the next few years received checks "from Days Inn" that when endorsed, authorized my membership into "Travelers Advantage", with annual membership fees, charged to "the credit card you used during your recent stay at a Days Inn"

When the first one arrived, I initially thought maybe it was a refund - I once worked at a hotel that had been forced to refund telephone overcharges - but found it was the same (legal) scam. After that, I immediately threw them out. Telecom companies often use "raffles" and "contest entry forms" as another means to sucker people into authorizing changes to services ... you gotta read the fine print.

I think that like unordered merchandise (which you may keep, without paying for), that if anyone sends you a check, unsolicated, you should be able to use the funds with no obligations to the payer. That would put the brakes on that sort of "membership drives".

I don't think these things are checks. They may look like checks, save for the text that says, "THIS IS NOT A CHECK". There's an easy way around any of this confusion: you know what your bills are and you should know what the envelopes look like, any others...throw them immediately in the trash. The risk of a paper cut is not worth satisfying your curiosity. Anything that says "open immediately", throw it away immediately. If it says "Urgent!" that means you must urgently deposit it in the trash. "Dated materialpen Immediately", ignore the "dated" part and refer to the "Open Immediately" part. As for your actual bills, there are 3 things of value in there, the return envelope, the statement, and the bill, usually attached via perforation to the statement. Everything else? You guessed it-into the trash. Oh, and that "free gift" you get each month with your cc bill? It's not free and that's a ripoff too! Don't be so naive, people.

I have to disagree with Loki regarding the point about throwing away mail without even opening it.... In today's world where you hear of "stolen identities" daily, one must be very punctilious to ensure that credit card applications, these "checks",etc are not thrown away where some unscrupulous person going through your trash can find that application and open credit in your name and "steal" your identity. I always open and then shred that type of mail. I do the same with these "checks" as well. Keith

2 points to Loki for the sarcasm.
1 point to Ke1th for the practical reminder about the world in which we currently live.

I'll totally agree with Keith about opening all mail and destroying certain correspondence.
And, from a positive point of view, I open all mail even since about 15-20 years when I received what looked like a promotional coupon from an airline. Just before discarding it, I reread the coupon and accompanying letter, and to my surprise, it was a legitimate free ticket on the airline that I had won in a promotional giveaway. No strings attached.
Also, in response to another point made by Loki: The checks in question are actual checks that can be cashed or deposited.

Daph
I have received many of these. Somewhere on that actual check that you signed, it stated that your acceptance of the check was giving permission for your credit card to be used.

I think we all agree: the problem with the post is calling this a "scam." It isn't. It may be somewhat cheesy but it's totally legit marketing.

I try not to be paranoid about identity theft or anything like though I can understand wanting to shred them. If someone grabbed a credit card offer and submitted it, the credit card would come to my address and I would have to use my phone to activate it. If you think about it, I can just grab a generic Visa application, look your name up in the phone book, fill it out and submit it. You could argue that I'd need your social security # but that is not always the case. I've refused ss# before and gotten a credit card, they'll still find a way to credit check you, but you don't have to actually supply the social. In these days of information technology, no one needs to pick through your dirty trash to take on your identity and I won't give them the satisfaction of taking 15 minutes out of every day to open up all these things, shred them, and risk hazardous, painful paper cuts.