Here at The SuperGroup, we do quite a bit of traveling for business, and like many frequent fliers, we were thrilled at the service that CLEAR offered: Guaranteed fast and efficient airport security checkpoints for a nominal annual fee. This setup allowed business travelers to be more productive and spend less time waiting in lines at the airport. Even the technology was cool, with retina scans straight out of a James Bond movie! For a time, things were swell.
Unfortunately, this morning, CLEAR members received the following email:
At 11:00 p.m. PST today, Clear will cease operations. Clear’s parent company, Verified Identity Pass, Inc. has been unable to negotiate an agreement with its senior creditor to continue operations.
To say that this was unexpected news is an understatement – just days before, CLEAR was running Fathers’ Day promos and encouraging their customers to renew their memberships. I even read one account that said a customer who’d received this notification had to tell the CLEAR employees at JFK airport that they were out of a job – apparently, they hadn’t gotten the memo.
Here at TSG, we’re pretty ticked off. Not just because a valuable service is no longer available, but because the situation is CLEARly fraud. More importantly, according to the small print, the personal data collected by this company can be “shared” with other entities. Ouch. We were duped along with 250,000 others. My crystal ball foretells: Lawsuits.
If you’re feeling the pain too, my advice is to dispute the charges with your credit card company. And if you happen to personally know one of the executives responsible for this, give’m a swift kick in the ass on behalf of all of us here at TSG.
