AFSCME 3357-HOF'S BLOG

Scummy Companies of the Week:
TLG Great Fun & Chase Bank

After being a consumer lawyer for the better part of two decades, I'm surprised that I just received my first complaint about TLG Great Fun, because when I looked them up on the web

TLG Great-Fun (complaint! OR scam)

Google returned 961 hits.

When I added chase to the mix, the hit count was 159, but more on that later

What does TLG do that's so bad? TLG has a business model where it imposes monthly charges on consumer's credit cards, and the consumers repeatedly claim, they don't know how they got on there. The charges are for auto clubs, buyers clubs or something, but nobody seems to know what benefits these clubs really provide. This little enterprise has been going on under a variety of names for years. According to Wikipedia.org, until recently, the official name was Trilegiant Corp, but the current name of TLG is Affinion Corporation. Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry.

This is an operation that generates perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars in revenues for its owners, while at the same time delivering minuscule goods or services. So who owns this gold mine? I'm not sure, it was related to the Cendant Group, according to Consumeraffairs.org; but Cendant broke up into numerous pieces last year. Also according to Consumeraffairs.org, this enterprise has used an astonishing number of program names or trade names. Here is consumeraffairs' list:

AOL AutoVantage
AOL Credit Alert
AOL Netmarket
AOL Travelers
Advantage
AutoVantage
Buyers Advantage
Citishopper
Clever
Clubhouse
CompleteHome
Credentials Services
Dental Plus Group Plan
Digital ProtectionPlus
Dinner On Us Club
Family FunSaver Club
Great Fun
Great Options
Health Saver
Homeowners Savings Network
Hot-Line
Identity Secure
Just For Me
Macy's Hot-Line
National Card Registry
Netmarket
OurCompleteHome.com
Pet
Privileges
PrivacyGuard
Sears Discount Travel Club
Shoppers
Advantage
Small
Business Central
Today's Homeowner Values
Travel ER
Travelers
Advantage

Incidently, consumeraffairs.org's coverage of this operation is excellent and appears to be frequently updated. One wonders why consumeraffairs can be this on top of things, but yet our taxpayer-funded consumer protection agencies are way behind.

One perpetual buddy of this TLG slimemold has been the Chase group, including Chase Bank and Chase Home Finance. As I indicated at the beginning of this post, a lot, though not all of the complainers are Chase customers. The involvement with Chase goes way back. In 2006, the Maine attorney general announced a 15 state settlement with TLG and Chase for alleged violations going back to 2001. When confronted by consumers concerning mystery charges on their debit and credit card statements, Chase has a practice of claiming ignorance and telling customers that they have to clear it through TLG (or whatever name they are going by at the time). This is a deceptive practice and a misrepresentation of the law. If it is a credit card, the consumer has dispute rights under the Fair Credit Billing Act, and if it is a debit card, the FTC credit practices rule applies. The consumer can dispute it and trigger the bank's duty to obtain verifiable written authorization from the merchant or the charge must be reversed. If you run into one of these charges and complain about it, I'll give you odds that Chase won't tell you that TLG is one of its marketing partners, and Chase has had an ongoing business relationship of AT LEAST providing customer names and address for solicitation by TLG.

Although some (but not all) state attorneys general have taken action on this, where have the federal authorities been? They've been asleep at the switch. As far as I can tell, their has been no action by either the Federal Trade Commission nor the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

If it can be established that Chase (and/or others) has a deal with TLG to sign up customers without their authorization, then this is nothing more than organized crime, and it should be treated as such. People should go to jail. There is obviously big money involved. This is a significant scam that is just one step away from major press coverage. Tune in for more as the story develops.