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It was a cold January evening when Chuck and Peggy Walton of North Richland Hills decided to try out Pizza Hut’s new pasta dish and to order it through the company’s Web site for home delivery.
They gave the pasta mixed reviews. "It was OK for emergency rations — when you’re hungry and don’t feel like going out or cooking," Peggy Walton said this week.But the ultimate cost — more than $100 as charges accrued in subsequent months from ongoing debits to their checking account — got a definite thumbs down."I felt stupid because I monitor our checking account regularly for irregular charges because I’m an online shopper," she said.When Chuck Walton placed the order, he had apparently clicked on a loyalty program offered by a Pizza Hut promotional partner, Webloyalty.com. The Waltons say they didn’t realize they were enrolled in a discount coupon program at a cost of $12 a month."I don’t know how I missed that for almost nine months," Peggy Walton said of the charges that were listed for "Complete Savings" on her bank statement.The Connecticut-based Webloyalty settled a class-action lawsuit in August that accused it of enrolling customers without their knowledge.Loyalty programs are usually designed to offer discounts, coupons or even cash back to encourage repeat business from Web site customers. But Webloyalty.com operates differently. It is much like the entertainment coupon books that customers buy for a set price and that provide hundreds of dollars in discounts, two-for-one offers and other benefits from participating retailers.In Webloyalty.com’s case, customers signed up for a free 30-day trial and got $10 off their next purchase or some other discount at the partner retailer, Pizza Hut in the Waltons’ case. Thereafter, they can go to the company’s Web site before going out to dinner or the movies, for example, and download coupons for discounted meals or tickets, Webloyalty.com spokeswoman Beth Kitchener said.She said Webloyalty.com takes complaints from customers seriously and does not intentionally deceive them. Its process requires participants to enter their e-mail address twice as verification that they read and understood the offer, Kitchener said. The company also sends seven e-mails during the first month reminding consumers to use the $10 discount and alerting them that the free trial is ending, she said.But its enrollment practices have taken a beating from the Better Business Bureau and a group of enrollees who say their participation in Webloyalty.com programs was unwitting. "The essence of our lawsuit was that consumers were being enrolled in programs without their knowledge," said David George, a lawyer in the Boca Raton, Fla., practice Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins L.L.P., which represented the plaintiffs. The suit covered enrollees in Webloyalty.com programs dating to 2000, George said.Plaintiffs’ lawyers said their clients disregarded the company’s e-mails as spam or the e-mails were automatically diverted to spam folders.
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