Check your credit card for €12 monthly to Complete Save or Complete Savings

Brendan Burgess

Brendan Burgess

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Some people have noticed a monthly charge to their credit card for something called "Complete Save" or "Complete Savings".

Conor Pope in the Irish Times has investigated this and reports on many people finding these payments:

This week’s consumer concern relates to mystery payments to Completesave.ie

and

More readers contact us about Complete Savings



If someone seeing this on their credit card gets around to investigating it, they find that they have inadvertently signed up to pay €12 a month to a company called Complete Savings.

They did this when they were booking tickets with Ryanair, Ticketmaster or Irish Rail. At the end of the booking they were offered €15 cash back off their next booking. They clicked on a button saying "Continue".

The did not realise that they were continuing off the Irish Rail website to a completely new website. They filled in credit card details, again thinking that they were just giving this information again to Irish Rail, but in fact they were giving an entirely new company the right to take money out of their account.

Of course, some people actually realised that they had gone to another site and did not sign up. But with thousands of bookings every day, enough people will fall into the trap and so make huge profits for Complete Savings and Irish Rail.

If you have been caught out by this, please tell us your experience in reply to this post.

You should call Complete Savings on 1800 806 167 and insist that they stop the direct debit and refund you what they have already taken in full.

You should also make a complaint to the National Consumer Agency and ask them to investigate the way these companies work together to sign up people inadvertently.

A fuller account is on this thread
 
Darragh O'Brien reports here that the first he heard that he had signed up to this was when he queried a line on his credit card saying "point of sale" . He had no idea what it was for.
 
Complete saving/int'l

Hi there,

My partner has just today seen on his statement that complete save has taken £10 the last two months, however, he has a lot of transactions, only ever £10 that say INT'L and a very long number, we know Amazon comes up as this but he's fairly sure he hasn't been spending that regularly on there and it IS AWLAYS just £10, just wondered if anybody knew of this at all? We can't work out where it has suddenly come from as when we searched this group the list of com[anies that complete are linked to he hasnt used or shopped with any of them the last 2 months, this is why we wonder about the INT'L transactions.
Can he call his bank? Can the bank help? and more importantly how does he stop this?

Kid regards

Tanya
 
Hi Tanya

This is an Irish site, but the answer will probably be the same.

He should contact his bank or credit card company and what they are for. They could be a simple compromise of his card, although this is unlikely as they would normally take out a lot more.


Someone else asked a similar question 3 years ago but didn't get an answer "What does int'l mean?"


Brendan
 
Hi Brendan,

Firstly sorry I didn't realise, this seemed to be the only sight that was giving the answers I was looking for.
Secondly Thank you for your reply and advise

Tanya
 
When you do sort it out, please get back to us and let us know.

One of the issues with these guys is that they use vague descriptions on their credit cards e.g. "point of sale" and people often assume "Ah well I must have bought something" and are too busy to pursue it.
 
I was just checking my account and noticed that. Recently i have booked a flight with Ryanair. This is outrageous. Thanks for the tips!
 
Got caught with Ticketmaster. They cancelled it easy enough and said they'd give me back my money. Their whole business model must be based on people not realising that they're taking it! Thanks for letting me know.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hi have no idea how I have been caught. I m not using Ticketmaster or Irish Rail, and last ticket bought to Ryanair was last year in September...
 
Hello gipsy18B:

We are very sorry you experienced difficulty when you tried to telephone the Complete Savings Customer Service centre. Please be assured that our telephone number, 1800 806 167, does still exist and works. We tested the telephone number after we saw your comment on this forum and we found it was working fine.

I received the email you sent to me directly. I checked your record and see that you were able to successfully use our telephone number yesterday and spoke to one of our customer service representatives who cancelled your membership as you requested.

I hope we have resolved your query to your satisfaction. Please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at mary@completesavings.ie should you have further queries. Alternatively, you contact the Complete Savings Customer Service Centre via email at customerservice@completesavings.ie or by telephone on 1800 806 167. Our hours of operation are Monday-Friday 8am-8pm and Saturday 9am-4pm.

Kind regards,
Mary
Complete Savings
 
I just discovered that I am being robbed by this firm also. I have sent them an email (below) and will keep you posted

Dear Complete savings
I unwittingly signed up for your discount scheme from an Irish rail website. The advert was so misleading that I actually thought I was signing up for a loyalty scheme with Irish rail. I have just noticed that your company is stopping €12.00 each month from my visa card since September 2014. I find this strange as I do not recall being asked for my visa details and I certainly do not recall it being clear that if I was joining your discount scheme I would be paying for the privilege. I also did not receive an email clearly marked to announce to me the end of my 30 day free trial and that from the next month I would be paying for any discount. The email contact has been sporadic at best, it seems to me that once your firm began sucking money from my account like a parasite you obviously felt that it would be better not to make your presence known. Had I received this I would have stopped it at once.
Looking online I see many other consumers have found the same situation and I want first of all for you to cease taking payment immediately and secondly I want a full refund. If I do not get a full refund I will taking further action to recoup my money and highlight your dubious and dishonest activity online. I will be raising this with Irish rail immediately. This is nothing short of online fraud. If it seems like I am hopping mad that is because I am hopping mad and am willing to go public to allow other consumers to benefit from my mistake.

Yours Sincerely

Brian Cooney
 
It is nothing short of shameful that a company like Irish Rail should promote this type of underhand signing up of clients to a contract that is totally unrelated to the services that they offer. This Post is now running for the past 12 months and there appears to have been no acknowledgement from IR or justification for the activity. Surely under consumer law such activities should not be permissible.
I noted something similar recently on Ticketmaster and if I had not been aware of the potential dangers of clicking on the link to avail of "Discount on next purchase" I would have fully assumed that it was an offer from Ticketmaster rather than a separate scheme where funds would have been drawn from my account.
Where the hell is "Corporate Responsibility??? Can we no longer trust any company not to try and dupe us? This type of activity is somewhat akin to getting all your colleagues to sign a card for a colleague with a bank withdrawal slip hidden under the card! If this is a legal activity we're all bunched.
 
Has the NCA ever commented on this?

Misleading practices are illegal under law see consumer protection act
 
Barry Kenny is the main spokesman for Irish Rail and is frequently on the airwaves answering questions from consumers re rail services. I have never heard of this issue being raised with him! In fact I have never seen it mentioned in the media outside of AAM.
 
Shocking that Irish Rail who is subsidised by the state resorting to this sort of tactic.
 
Hi. First of all sorry for my english-it's not my first language. I have the same problem as well. just realized few days ago that I was charged 12 euro each month since.......august 2013. it was joint account-me, my wife, lot of transactions, car insurance x2, mobile, gas, electricity and much more... just rang ulster bank, spend 18 minutes on phone, they told me to contact completesave directly-I e-mail them and waiting. I have no idea wich web site I was using but ryianair probably. how its possible that official web sites are not secure ryianair or Irish Rail?? is it still safe to use visa or mastercard on line anymore? is that completesave legal or I should contact solicitor? how long it take to get refund?
 
Hello Jakub:

We will be happy to assist you with your query about Complete Savings.

Complete Savings is an online membership programme ideal for those who shop online regularly. Complete Savings members have access to a wide range of cashback deals, including an initial cashback reward, a monthly cashback reward, discounted gift cards and 10% cashback at over 650 online stores.

The only way to become a member is to enter your details in full on the Complete Savings sign-up page. The details you are required to enter are: your name, your email address (twice), your postal address, a new password (twice) and your credit or debit card details for the monthly billing. It is mentioned in several places on the sign-up page that following 30 days free membership, there is a monthly fee - hence why you are required to provide your credit/debit card details on the sign-up page. To complete your sign-up, you must click a "Yes" button to agree to the terms and conditions of the programme. There is no other way of creating a membership but to provide your details in full and click the "YES" button on the sign-up page.

If you have not yet received a response to the email you sent to our customer service centre, or, you need further assistance, please get in touch with me directly at mary@completesavings.ie so that I can identify your record and resolve your query to your satisfaction. Alternatively, you could telephone our customer service centre on 1800 806 167.

Kind regards,
Mary
The Complete Savings Customer Service Team
 
I just discovered my account is now benefiting the people at The Complete Savings etc. I am livid. I don't use on line shops that much so their product is not attractive to someone like me. I work as a journalist so I will be looking for one hell of an explanation as to what is going on here.
 
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