Don’t you just love when companies send you unwanted memberships?

Don’t you just love it when some company sends you an unwanted membership — usually a free membership to something only marginally useful and with some “catches” that require you to cancel or you’ll be charged a gazillion dollars a month??

Maybe that doesn’t happen to you. Usually such deals start as a telemarketing call from a company that got my name on a mailing list from something I’ve legitimately ordered, like car insurance for example. The caller always makes sure I understand he’s in some sort of vague connection to my insurance company, then gives me a terrific free trial of the world’s best monthly auto club. After I was stuck with an unwanted month or two of membership fees, I wised up. Now, a pretty standard rule when someone calls me about ANY telemarketing offer is to simply interrupt them with, “No thanks. I’m not interested” — then I hang up the phone. Rude? Maybe, but then I do say “no thanks,” and THEY are the ones who intruded on me.

Sometimes a membership card will arrive unexpectedly in the mail. These usually require me to go online to formally register, or to send them money with an enclosed invoice. They’re easier to avoid; simply tear them up or shred them and toss them.

Not long ago, I actually got snookered into a monthly membership when I ordered a pizza online. (I won’t name the pizza chain, but their name rhymes with “Geeza Nut.”) At the end of my order, they popped up an offer to get $10 off on my next order. Hey, $10 off, okay. I immediately found myself clicking through obscure links, filling out forms, etc., expected ultimately to reach a link for a $10 off coupon. My head was spinning when I finally got through with all the forms and sub-forms — but I got no coupon. I assumed it would simply show up in my next pizza order.

I was shocked to get a $12.00 monthly fee on my debit card — the same card I used to order the pizza — about two months after I’d ordered that pizza. I tracked the business down and found it was a monthly membership site that was charging me now $12.00 a month — yet I never found a pizza discount.

It wasn’t hard to contact the company and cancel the order, they even refunded my money.

But I’ll never order pizza from the “We Gotcha, Nut” pizza place again!!