Citation[]
U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, Science and Transportation, Office of Oversight and Investigations Majority Staff, Aggressive Sales Tactics on the Internet and Their Impact on American Consumers (Nov. 17, 2009) (full-text).
Overview[]
This is a Staff Report of an investigation into a set of controversial e-commerce business practices that have generated high volumes of consumer complaints. The staff investigated three Connecticut-based direct marketing companies — Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty — as well as the hundreds of websites and retailers that partner with these three companies to sell club memberships to online shoppers. Although the investigation was not yet complete, it was clear that these three companies use highly aggressive sales tactics to charge millions of American consumers for services the consumers did not want and did not understand they had purchased.