The New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has subpoenaed GameStop, along twenty-one other prominent retailers including Barnes and Noble, Expedia, Travelocity, Staples, Pizza Hut, and others. Cuomo alleges that these retailers have been "tricking customers into accepting offers from third party vendors, which then siphon money from consumers’ accounts." 

Some of the discount programs that have so far been named include Webloyalty, Affinion/Trilegiant, and Vertrue, and bring in a combined total of more than $1 billion each year. Cuomo claims that often consumers don't even realize that unauthorized charges are being withdrawn from their accounts, likely because the charges are sporadic and small.

Law Professor Prentiss Cox from the University of Minnesota weighs in:

Retailers that sell their customers’ account information so that the customer can be charged for a membership club by stealth should know that they are participating in a marketplace scam. Data from public enforcement actions over the last ten years and from the recent U.S. Senate Commerce Committee investigation suggest that the number of consumers who know they are club members and know they are paying for this purported privilege range between about 0 percent and 5 percent.

Every retailer and bank should be held responsible for selling their customers’ account information to other companies, especially when the deceptive results of this arrangement are so obvious.