WASHINGTON, D.C.—John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, continued the Committee’s investigation into controversial “post-transaction” online business practices by sending letters yesterday to 16 e-retailers that appear to be involved in these practices.    

Since May 2009, the Committee has been investigating three e-commerce companies—Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty—to better understand their business practices on the Internet, which have been the focus of criticism by consumer advocates and have generated thousands of complaints by individual consumers.  Chairman Rockefeller continued this investigation yesterday by sending information request letters to sixteen companies that have apparently allowed Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty to present membership club enrollment offers to their online customers and have agreed to pass their customers’ credit card or debit card numbers to Affinion, Vertrue, and Webloyalty.

 
A list of the companies that received a request for information is included below:

• 1-800-FLOWERS.com, Inc.
• AirTran Holdings, Inc.
• Classmates.com, Inc.
• Continental Airlines, Inc.
• FTD, Inc.
• Fandango, Inc.
• Hotwire, Inc.
• Intelius, Inc.
• Movietickets.com, Inc.
• Orbitz Worldwide, Inc.
• Pizza Hut, Inc.
• Priceline.com, Inc.
• Redcats USA, Inc.
• Shutterfly, Inc.
• US Airways Group, Inc.
• Vistaprint USA, Inc.

***Please see sample letters related to the investigation below***