Wall Street Journal of Shame
Or how to charge $742.84 to an expired and cancelled credit card
After subscribing to the Wall Street Journal Online for over a decade, in 2010 I decided that it wasn’t worth another $155 per year. Visiting my WSJ.com account profile, I found there was no way to cancel my subscription, nor delete my credit card. I’m not the only one to discover this defect-by-design. So I waited until September 8, 2010, when I received an email titled “An important message about your Wall Street Journal Online subscription”
Our records indicate that your credit card on file for your Wall Street Journal Online subscription has expired. To ensure future uninterrupted access to your Online Journal subscription, with user name cbonsig, please update your credit card information today…
Bingo. Card expired. Now when its up for renewal in May of 2011, the transaction will fail. Game over. I win. Take that, Wall Street Fat Cats.
March 7, 2011, I received another version of the same email. Then on April 22, 2011, yet another. Those Wall Street Fat Cats were really starting to get nervous about my expired credit card! I was pleased. The May renewal date came and went, and I received another Important Message about my expired card on September 6, 2011. And another in October, and November, and April of 2012, and April of 2013. In July of 2013, I got a colorful email titled “Reconnect Today to the Wall Street Journal”
WEVE(sic) MISSED YOU AT THE WALL STREET JOURNAL … Reactivate your Wall Street Journal subscription today and unlock the full subscriber experience …
Every message was a happy reminder that I was no longer paying for a subscription.
Except that I was.
On May 14, 2011 my expired AMEX card was charged $155.00. Shortly thereafter, that card was cancelled because of a (different) fraudulent charge, and I received a new card, with an entirely new number. On May 16, 2012, the new card, with a number I never gave to the Wall Street Journal, was charged $207.48. Then $259.48 in 2013, then $275.88 in 2014.
Then I noticed.
I thought it was just a fraudulent charge — it had been years since I subscribed to WSJ.com! I dug up my login information, and confirmed that they didn’t even have my current credit card number. I disputed the charge with AMEX. I emailed the subscription fraud address at Dow Jones, and they told me to call 1-800-JOURNAL. They told me it was a valid subscription, and offered a prorated refund. I told them to cancel and delete my account, and only later realized that there were four years of charges on my expired and/or cancelled card. How is this possible?
Recurring Indicator and Account Updater
The credit card and subscription industries are quite innovative indeed. Here are two exciting features they have developed in recent years.
The Recurring Indicator allows merchants offering subscriptions to exclude the expiration date from a transaction, thus allowing charges to continue on expired cards. That’s handy!
The Account Updater allows such merchants to obtain a consumer’s new credit card number, if it has changed due to fraud, a change of banks, or some other reason. Fantastic!
While these “automatic renewal” programs may offer some convenience to the consumer, they are exceptionally convenient for firms pimping subscriptions. As I have learned the hard way, they are dangerous, expecially in the hands of deceptive and unscrupulous merchants. Many states have introduced strict regulations to limit abuse of such programs. California’s Auto-Renewal Law (ARL) was enacted in 2010, requiring clear communication of such policies, and affirmative consent to such practices. It is unclear to me if WSJ.com’s sleazy practices run afoul of the ARL. But they clearly are shameful.
