What's On Your Mind? Priceline.com, AT&T, Secret Shopper Scam

Rachelle, of Altamont Springs, Fla., said she didn't know how the Priceline.com travel site worked when she went on it to shop hotels and airlines. She learned in a hurry, and the hard way.

“I had never used Priceline before I was checking on prices through the website and did not realize I had actually booked a reservation,” Rachelle told ConsumerAffairs.com. “I immediately called both the hotel and airline and they said they could not cancel it on their end, or they would but I had to call Pricline back . I called and spoke to a Gio and another customer service agent in which they are telling me they can not refund my money even though the transaction is still pending through my bank and the airline does not have my information yet on their end.”

Keep in mind, once a reservation is made through a third-party site, it's pretty much cast in stone.

Annoy the annoyer

Most offices are busy places and phone calls – especially phone calls you don't want to deal with – can be a big time waster.

“AT&T calls frequently to solicit business and I inform them every single time to stop calling and put us on their do not call list and each of them state 'not gonna happen,'” Elizabeth, of Gardenia, Calif, said. “We are a business and don't have time for their harassment calls. Waste of everyone's time.”

Unfortunately for Elizabeth, the Do Not Call law only covers home numbers, not business numbers. She may have to get very creative to dissuade future calls. Keeping an air horn near the phone and blasting the receiver mouthpiece during a telemarketer call, or trying to convert the caller to some obscure religion, have proven effective in the past.

Ouch!

Nothing hurts more than being the victim of a scam. Most people are embarrassed and don't tell anyone, which just exposes more people to the scam. Chanda, of Minersville, Pa., is brave enough to share her story about falling for a “secret shopper” scam.

“First, I wish I would have researched more before taking two postal money orders which I believed to be authentic and deposited them into my own personal bank account,” Chanda said. “I did have some concern so I purposely did not do anything with the funds for 5 business days to ensure they would clear. After I believed it was legitimate I did Western Union funds to Manila, Philippines as directed in the emails after completing evaluations on Walmart and Western Union. I am a college graduate and considered myself smarter than to be taken across by some scam artists but I was taken and now owe my bank over $1000. I feel stupid and frustrated that there seems to be no resolution to my error.”

While many businesses do, in fact, use secret shoppers, it is not a glamorous, highly-compensated career. If it is marketed that way, it's probably a scam. In Chanda's case, there were two tip offs – the requirement for her to wire money and the fact that the recipient was located outside the U.S. But Chanda is to be commended for sharing her story as a warning to others.