OK this is a bit of a problem. There is a lot of information on this page. I recommend that you bookmark this page for reference.
You are now aware that you have been billed by Staffordish, a small shell company in Cyprus. Now you know that you are their customer, and that they can access your personal and financial informationand they share it with other, unknown third parties. As noted before, the terms and privacy policies are not customer friendly. The company that stores your personal information is not known. Even assuming there is no bad intent, you can see this is a risky situation.
The Problem with Cyprus...
Companies are in Cyprus because of the low tax rate, and because they can do so anonymously. A law firm can file the papers and anonymity is protected by lawyer client privilege. The real owner might not be listed with the company. There is just no accountability in this situation.
Hopefully you can see that you are exposed to some risk. Some unknown entity with unknown security practices has your personal and financial information.
What to do now…
I would sever ties with this company. Here is a quick summary of what you need to do now:
- Identify where it started. Review your browsing history
- Call your bank, cancel your credit card and get a new one
- Opt-out of the Card Updater Service
- Cancel the service
- Pay the Bill
- Get a credit monitoring service
1. Try to identify where the charge came from
Go back in your browsing history around the date of the charge. You probably need to go back further in time, since there might be a trial period involved in what ever service you signed up for. Hopefully you will have saved enough browsing history.
Remember to check with other members of the household. It happens more than you might think. Even if that person used it without your knowledge, you are still responsible for the charge.
2. Cancel your credit card and get a new one
I know this is going to be a hassle, but trust me, this is necessary. You do not know who has your credit card information.
The first big reason is that you are at risk of Identity Theft. This could be thru an overt act on the part of the one of the unknown entities that has your credit card, or an inadvertent act because of lax security policies and practices. When you are dealing with an unknown, there is no accountability.
Also, keep in mind that your personal and financial information might have been shared with affiliates. Canceling your card will ensure you do not incur further charges. I frequently receive emails from people stating that they cancelled the service, yet the charges keep coming. Remember the bonus offers?
3. Opt out of the Card Updater service.
When you get a new card, tell your bank that you want to opt-out of the Card Updater service. Card Updater provides merchants your new credit card number when it changes. This keeps subscription services uninterrupted. For VISA, its called Account Updater. MasterCard calls it Automatic Billing Updater.
Opt-out is provided by most major financial institutions. If your bank does not allow you to opt-out, find a new bank.
4. Cancel the Service
Remember, the charges are recurring monthly fees. More charges will show up again on your credit card statement if you do not act quickly.
To cancel the service, visit shnvme.com. The customer service site has functions to cancel the subscription / membership, and a chat feature should you want to do that. If you prefer, you can call the Staffordish customer service number.
Staffordish Customer Service Number:
5. Pay the bill
The fact that you might have forgotten about a trial membership doesn’t affect your obligation to pay. Nor is your obligation impacted if your kid used your credit card, you have to pay that too. (Happens more than you might think.)
6.Get a Credit Monitoring Service.
The credit monitoring service will help protect against identity theft. The fact that an unknown company has your credit card means you are at risk of Identity Theft. Remember, we do not know who has your personal financial information. The stated privacy policy on the sites reveal that risk in plain language. Since we do not know who has processed your credit card, we do not know what will happen if there is a breach.
I recomend Identity Guard a Trusted Leader in Identity Protection. You will have a choice on how you protect yourself. Its a good company, and I like the way they have treated me. As former IBM employee, I guess I am partial to the Watson by IBM technology. Watson uses artificial intelligence to assess threats to your identity.
Full Disclosure: The links on this page are affiliate links. Identity Guard. I get a small commission, at no cost to you if you use a link on my site. There is usually a discount if you use my link. This helps pay the cost of this site.
This is important. I only want you to make a commitment if you are comfortable that this is the right thing for you. Only you know what happened to you, and your situation.
Source: https://www.iii.org/fact-statistic/facts-statistics-identity-theft-and-cybercrime