Is this Car Wash a Dirty Business?

We moved to the area last year and my wife went to the Whistle Express Car Wash to clean her car. She bought one car wash and charged it on her card. Only recently we discovered her card was being charged monthly for that one lone car wash last year. You know how it is, life gets busy and you forget to check your statements…but all told, these charges now total $500. That’s not a small problem!

Attempts to contact the corporate office in North Carolina have been unsuccessful. They don’t answer their phones and they don’t return calls. We have contacted our bank to get those fraudulent charges removed. A look online shows NUMEROUS complaints against this (and other) car washes for repeated charges that were not authorized, and the Better Business Bureau site shows unresolved complaints as well.

Yelp has many complaints for unauthorized charges like mine, many from Christiansburg/Montgomery County. One of them says, “Despite how you answer the prompts when selecting a carwash, you’ll get signed up for their $20 unlimited monthly carwash plan. They are aware of this deceptive business practice and other people have complained about it. It’s not easy to get them to cancel it. I will not be going back.”

Not sure if we can get a refund since this company is so unresponsive, but wanted to let folks in the area know about this issue in case anyone else is finding this a problem.

— M. Kotsatos