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Online credit card fraud is on the rise thanks to a number of unscrupulous advertising schemes. While get rich quick internet marketing schemes have always been popular on the web, our current economic crisis is drawing even more people to check out advertisers who claim to have a way to generate cash quick.

Two campaigns that seem to appear everywhere are the Google Link plan and the Government Grant scheme. The Google campaign promises to show how you can make $5000 a month simply posting links to the site. The Grant program promises to show how you can get money from the government and never pay it back. Both want to give you the information for free and ask only for a $1.98 shipping and handling fee.

Hidden in the almost impossible to find terms and conditions is a clause that states that by requesting the information and charging the shipping and handling fee to your credit card, you have opted in to monthly memberships of other programs which can run up to $60 per month. But thats not all.

In addition to enrolling you into these worthless monthly programs, they sell your email, phone number and mailing address to direct marketers. Shortly after you make the payment for the shipping and handling charges, you will be flooded with spam emails, junk snail mail and your phone will start ringing off the hook from telemarketers who want to tell you how to make money at home.

Unfortunately, the only way to know that you have been enrolled in the monthly subscriptions is to check your credit card statement. These sites are not going to send you a welcome letter. When you find the charges they may or may not have a telephone number associated to the charge. In some cases it will just be a site name and youll track down a number in order to call and cancel the subscription.

If you can find a single toll free number on your statement, you have just found the customer service number for all the sites. Even if there are different 800 numbers, they all go to the same place. There is a call center in Las Vegas that handles calls for the sites.

When you call to cancel, begin with the site name that was listed with the number you called. The customer service person will pull up your record and tell you that you opted in for all the monthly subscriptions and then try to sell you again to stay enrolled. When you decline they will that they will no longer charge you for any subscriptions. If you let it go at that point you are still out money because they are saying they will not charge any additional fees. They are not saying they will refund that which was already charged. Make it clear that you want a refund for charges already made.

Now that they have agreed to refund you on the original site, demand that the same thing be done on the other sites as well. It may be that one or more of the additional sites may not be using the call center anymore and they will not be able to issue a refund. If that’s the case call your credit card and explain the unauthorized charge and that the site does not have any contact information. Typically the card company will “freeze” the transaction and resolve the issue themselves. This may take some time.

Buyer beware, a sucker is born every minute and a whole litany of like phrases apply to these kinds of scams. It’s unfortunate that predatory advertisers have no qualms taking a consumer’s money for these worthless schemes.

If you are making a first time purchase from a vendor, always read the terms and conditions. If it’s available, use PayPal to process the transaction. By using PayPal, the vendor never sees your credit card information. If that’s not an option, be sure the site is displaying the VeriSign bage that tell you they are using a secure server. Lastly, always check your credit card statements carefully and take action on any unauthorized items.