Fake "free subscription" followed by £89.99 annual noncancellable fee
This firm offers a free subscription for "cheap travel" without making it obvious that 365 days later they will start billing your credit card forever £89.99 and that you can't cancel the subscription even on the day they charge your card and you first discover their scheme. My main address is in Marin County California. Opado operates under several names including "edreams" out of Barcelona. They claim to be licensed in California but that seems untrue. This morning without prior notice they charged my Chase Sapphire Reserve card $121.41 (£89.99) and sent a confirming e-mail. When I rang them on the UK number (which actually was answered in Spain) I was told I could not cancel despite knowing nothing of the firm. It appears that my secretary bought my daughter with my credit card air tickets last year for a short flight to Italy and that this enrolled me -- without notice -- a lifetime of £89.99 annual fees. My call was unsatisfactory. Without providing details of any contract they simply refused to cancel (although subsequently sent an email saying I would not be charged next year.) I immediately rang Chase Credit Cards in the USA who knowing that such conduct is unlawful will reverse the charge. In short: this is a firm I never heard of, never knowingly subscribed to, but my daughter bought a cheap ticket to Italy from a year ago -- and she doesn't know the firm either. And Opado now claim the right to charge my credit card forever. (Of course it's been cancelled now, and I await a reply from Chase Bank.) Claude AI has confirmed: "the most heavily documented dark-pattern operations in European e-commerce, and the regulators have finally been catching up with it. Opodo is a brand of eDreams ODIGEO S.A., Barcelona-based and Madrid-listed, which also operates eDreams, GO Voyages, Travellink, and liligo — all running the identical "Prime" playbook..." They also confirm that for me as a resident of the USA it is illegal: "The relevant federal statute is ROSCA — the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act — which requires clear and conspicuous disclosure of negative-option terms, express informed consent before charging, and a simple cancellation mechanism."








