I was searching the forums and looking up stuff about "third-party" issues since I think I was scammed by one.
Here's my story:
I got charged 49.99 from an unknown company that had a number attached to it in my bank statement from Miami,FL The number was 888-442-3652. I called them twice. The first time I called, I asked about the charge and a foreign woman said in order to tell me what's wrong they needed my last 4 digits of my credit card, birthdate (why?) zipcode and first/last name. I declined to give out such sensitive information so I asked what their website was. They told me it was something like, "FFsCustomerservice.com" but it obviously was a bogus site and they changed the name of the website slightly when I asked for a clarification.
The second time I called it was a foreign man who answered. He asked me for my full name, zip, and first 4 and last 4 digits of my credit card. I asked for their company's website and he said they do not have one, they are people who provide service to websites. I asked about Avast and he said they provide third-party customer service for them and they do not have customer support directly in Avast so they are an outsource. It seemed shady enough that they didn't have a website, plus I wasn't comfortable with them asking for such private information a bit differently each time. I understand the last 4 digits are needed to check a transaction, but I just couldn't give out my creditcard since I had a hunch about it. So I ended up cancelling my debit card because. I tried cancelling the auto-charge of 49.99 from last month on Avast and I thought it actually went through, I guess didn't and was charged again through a third party exactly a month post-cancellation...
The company's name was "Customer Service for Merchants" or something weird like that. Do take note that when I asked about what their company's name and website was they were reluctant and would rather rattle off what their company does than tell me what they are. Totally shady.