When I read stories like this I'm bothered by the fact that the author didn't go to their credit card company and chargeback the unwanted purpose. Your credit card is a powerful tool to mitigate retailers not giving you what you expect, using it motivates bad actors quite well. Chargebacks are expensive and too many chargebacks leads to unfavorable terms with the credit card companies which are inescapable to the retailers. (just like PlayStation has a captive market, so does Visa)