MEMBER PROGRAM: A marketing scheme in which a consumer is incessantly hounded by phone and urged to sign up for a useless service. 2. A plan in which the consumer’s credit card is billed without permission. 3. A program in which a consumer’s name and credit card number are shared with an outside organization. All three may coincide.
Unfair? Hardly. Every detail in that definition was taken from complaints filed over the past few years against various membership club operators. In each case, the charges were settled for large sums.
No wonder the states are passing do-not-call bills and other legislation (see story on page 1).
Some member programs may offer value. But many are ripoffs, and they attract some of the worst characters in direct marketing.
Take Ira Smolev, who has a history of mail fraud convictions going back to the 1970s. As I once heard a Manhattan judge say of a defendant, Smolev has
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