Thanks for the comment. I'd better tell the full story, to solicit advice. I am living in Orlando, Florida. The merchant company is in Cincinnati, Ohio. I made an order online in response to an advertisement for a medical supplement. The price was only $5.95. Unlike all other orders I had made online, this merchant didn't send me an email to confirm the order.
The merchandise came some days after the order was made. But inside the envelope there was no invoice listing the price, product name, company name, and contact information. Another package came about a month later. Quantity of the medicine doubled. But again, there was no invoice. I knew there had to be a charge, thus intended to return the merchandise, but had no idea on the company's return policy. So I could only wait.
Then came the credit card statement. $79.90 was listed as the price. But the merchant's contact information, such as phone number, was not listed in it. I was still unable to contact it, but immediately disputed the transaction to the CC company, which promised to investigate the case.
About a month later, the CC company sent me a letter from the merchant in response to my dispute. Its phone number was listed in a page of it. Only at that time that I became aware of its contact information, and immediately called to cancel the order. An Account Specialist did accordingly, and sent me an email to confirm the cancellation. A cancellation number was included in the email. Please note the date is important. It was Nov. 3, 2009.
In the letter, the merchant said that before I was asked to pay for the merchandise with credit card, I was notified of its policy that it would send me the merchandise every two months with a charge of $79.90 to the credit card. And it had showed me its contact information and cancellation policy.
In my response to the merchant's letter, I told the CC company that the merchant told me nothing as it claimed to. And This was exactly the reason that it didn't send me an email to confirm the order. Because if it had sent the email, it would have to confirm not only the $5.95 order, but also the $79.90 bi-monthly commitment, and information of its contact number and return policy. But the reason why I didn't cancel the order or return the product was that the merchant didn't tell anything.
Following I will tell about the false data entry in my order record. In a page of the merchant's letter to the CC company, it claimed that I canceled the order on Oct. 8. As mentioned above, I didn't cancel it until Nov. 3 when I got its contact information from the CC company. After canceling the order, the merchant sent me an email to confirm the cancellation. There was a cancellation number in the email.
If, as the merchant claims, that I did have cancelled the order on Oct. 8, the merchant should have sent me an email to confirm the cancellation, including an cancellation number. I bet it cannot produce any evidence to support its claim.
Why, then, did the merchant fabricate the cancellation on the order record? It intended to prove that I knew its contact information throughout and other things it claims to have told me, including the bi-monthly payment of $79.90 and cancellation policy. So the merchant placed false information on the order record and sent it to the CC company.
The amount in question is not big, only $79.90. But the merchant did fabricate information in the order record. I like to listen to your advice on this case. In particular, whether is there a fraud involved?
Thanks for your patience in coming to this point.
