There’s only 1 catch: the main operator of these “free trials” isn’t listed on any of the merchant agreements and on paper is not the direct beneficiary of the scheme. Nevertheless, his company facilitated nearly all components of the activities for the “free trials” to take sales, including but not limited to shipping, advertising, chargeback management, private labeling, MID acquisitions, and customer service.
Through our investigation and detailed collection of data, we will reveal the great lengths this operator has gone through to make it difficult for authorities to track down what thousands of consumers are calling “fraud.” As part of our research, it appears that a very sophisticated Visa/Mastercard merchant banking structure, of which we will analyze in great depth in subsequent articles, has enabled the operator to maintain the scam for years across a multitude of companies without getting caught. And while there’s a very in-depth legal structure in place that is intended to make it hard to trace the free trial schemes back to the operator, it did not prevent us from discovering who he is.