The other day, I had a charge appear on my credit card from Audible for $47.70. I monitor my credit card activity closely and knew that this was a fraudulent charge. But, before I could do anything, I had to wait for the charge to clear my bank. During my wait, Audible charged me the same fee again. After three days of waiting, I contacted the bank and was advised that they would cancel my card and investigate the charges. I was hoping for the simple route to block charges from Audible and forget about it. I discovered that wasn’t an option.
I contacted Audible and discovered that I have an account with them, but I am not a member. Since Audible is an Amazon Company, Amazon shared my information. Although I had an account with Audible, I was not a member and didn’t have any purchases with them. A call taker admitted that my credit card was associated with another account, but she was very protective of that account and refused to provide any information. She generously offered to help me if I could provide the first name of the fraudster. I asked her if she really thought that I might know the person fraudulently using my credit card. I explained to her that most victims of online fraud don’t know the perpetrator. She was neither willing to reverse the charge nor stop any future charges against my card. She was no help; she seemed more intent on keeping the criminal safe. Something we are seeing more and more in today’s society.
It doesn’t have to be this way. Why are companies in bed with the criminals? Granted, they are not willful participants, but they provide no protection for those who are experiencing fraud. The impression that I got from Audible was that I’m a forgetful grandparent and gave my card number to a grandchild to commit fraud against me. I’ll have to admit that my memory is failing, but we are not there yet. It is no wonder that scammers are so successful because companies like Audible do nothing to help the victims of crime.
If Audible wanted to help, they would immediately say, “Yes, we see that your credit card is associated with another account. If you don’t authorize that, we will reverse the charges and stop any further charges on that card.” But, instead, they say, “Yes, we see that your card is associated with another account, but there is nothing that we are willing to do about that.” PERIOD!
Even when I am no longer able to read, I will never pay for anything on Audible. I’m only posting this as a record that I can refer to Audible in the future.
So, why am I calling this an Audible Scam? Once I notified Audible that they were allowing my credit card to be used freely on their website. They refused to do anything about it. Once notified of the fraud, they failed to take action, causing them to become participants in the fraud.