BEWARE: Restaurant.com Users

I have previously purchased and redeemed restaurant gift certificates from Restaurant.com, and I have never had a problem using them at restaurants. Of course, some of them have restrictions such as minimum purchase, etc. but I have never had a problem redeeming them.

I have lost my faith in Restaurant.com as a company though, and I am urging all of you to be cautious about your orders with them...

It seems that Restaurant.com is associated with a company called "Shopping Essentials." At the end of your Restaurant.com order you are asked if you want to opt-in to Shopping Essentials program (some sort of rebate program, I guess). I always click "No" and bypass all of these survey-type things because, sure-enough, there's a catch.

Apparently, it doesn't matter if you don't want to sign up... Restaurant.com gave them my credit card info. any way and I have been billed $14.95/month for a 'membership' to Shopping Essentials. Needless to say, I won't be posting any more discount codes for Restaurant.com. :)

To be honest, it's my fault for not catching it sooner since I let my husband deal with the credit card. And he just assumed I had charged something... until now. We have been charged $14.95 a month since June! That's $89.70!

I called Restaurant.com and asked for a copy of the "agreement" I apparently agreed to - after searching they couldn't come up with one (because I didn't agree to it) and directed me to the page that would have been my agreement. This page has scam written all over it. A quick Google search shows I'm not alone.

I called Shopping Essentials (NOTE: based in India or somewhere overseas)... I tried logging-in to their website - after all, if I'm a 'member' I should have access, right? I didn't have an account with them, they just wanted to charged me every month. Not only were they incredibly rude and difficult to understand, "Maria" quickly brushed it off saying, "OK, it's canceled." And then she hung up on me!

American Express ended up refunding the money for 3 of the months and put up a fraud alert should they try this again. I called Shopping Essentials back and spoke to the supervisor who politely offered to refund the additional months. Hard lesson learned -- Eesh!

So, I hope this helps someone else.