A national online DVD rental company appears to have gone out of business without telling its customers.
Customers of Canflix tell our Consumer Specialist Lea Williams-Doherty that the company is still threatening to charge their credit cards.
Paul Hansen is one of those customers.
He was a member of the Calgary based online DVD rental company for 3 years.
He paid $21 a month and could rent as many DVD's as he liked.
The company would mail him the movies, he'd send them back after he watched them, and the fee was automatically put on his credit card.
"I was fairly happy with them, they provided the movies I wanted in a fairly timely manner," said Hansen.
In February, the movies suddenly stopped coming but the monthly charge continued.
Hansen's calls and emails to Canflix went unanswered so he cancelled his membership.
He got an email acknowledging his cancellation, but the email also said his card would be charged for the DVD's he hadn't returned.
Hansen says he did return those movies in January, but Canflix hasn't responded to his emails stating that.
"I honestly have no idea what's going on. It is very frustrating that they're not letting their members know what's happening."
Hansen questions whether anyone is still minding the store even though the Canflix website is still up and running.
He is also concerned about the fact that this company still has control of his credit card.
Lea's calls and emails to Canflix went unanswered so she went to the company's national headquarters.
She found a deserted office.
Lea continued to investigate and found the home phone number of Canflix' CEO.
That call wasn't returned either and her search of Alberta bankruptcy court filings turned up nothing on the company.
The Better Business Bureau was also left wondering about the company's disappearance.
Lea says there is some recourse for those who are still members of the fallen DVD company.
MasterCard says customers should contact the bank that issued the card.
Visa says if a merchant charges cardholders for goods or services not received then the cardholder will not be responsible for the charges and those charges should be disputed with the issuing bank.
If a merchant goes out of business but recurring charges continue to appear on the cardholder's statement, Visa says cardholders should contact their issuing bank to find out how to go about cancelling those charges.
Visa said the process may vary from bank to bank.
