I registered for FOCS via our school’s accountant. It seems to have caused an automatic registration to ActiveAdvantage, run through active.com (which handled the FOCS registrations?). After a one month “free trial membership”, the school’s credit card was charged $59.95 for a “membership renewal”.
You may want to check your credit card bill to see if you were also charged for this.
Or perhaps I checked or failed to uncheck some box. But I don’t remember this.
Regonline.com has been a good service in the past and has even been mandated by ACM. They are part of active.com. I registered for FOCS and did not get such an enrollment but I recall that I may have unclicked something. I have sent their tech support an e-mail pointing to your post and asking that anyone who has been subscribed through this process during their FOCS 2011 registration have all money refunded and be unsubscribed. This was somehow part of the credit card processing that we did not ask for.
I am very sorry about this and will keep you posted on the response we get from them. IEEE and ACM have enough conferences that there is a larger community than just the FOCS community that has a stake in this.
Paul
Thanks Paul – I’m sure if there is anything amiss it was not on purpose …
Here is a (slightly edited) message that I received today from someone at ActiveEvents. Please take a look at the bottom for the cancellation information:
I have begun the process to have the Active Advantage program removed from the account associated with all FOCS conferences. Please let me know if you would like it removed from any other accounts. The process takes 24-48 hours, but I have escalated it, and I will let you know, once it has been completed.
I also wanted to send this info to you, in case any registrants accidentally subscribed, and would like to unsubscribe and be refunded. I’m sorry that I’m unable to send a list of your registrants who elected to opt in to the Active Advantage offer.
We do send numerous communications to new Active Advantage members during the trial period. These emails do communicate the process to cancel:
New members receive a confirmation email after submitting their trial order
Trial members receive a “reminder” email halfway through the trial encouraging them to take advantage of the program
Members receive an email notifying them that billing will occur
Members receive a confirmation email when their credit card is billed
Members receive monthly benefit update emails including links to relevant partners
Customers may cancel their membership at any time through the following:
1. Emailing ActiveAdvantage@active.com
2. Contacting the Active customer support line at 877.228.4881
If a customer forgets to cancel during their trial membership, their credit card will be charged the yearly subscription fee. However, they may contact customer support at any time to receive a pro-rata refund.