Alright I admit it I'm a moron.

I found out my wonderful proactive credit card company had taken the initiative of enrolling me in two programs that I have no memory of agreeing to they're called.

PAYMENT PROTECTOR
CHASE *ID PROTECTION

Both have a monthly charge. Okay here comes the I'm a moron part. I haven't been very good at checking statements in detail unless I notice something really amiss with the balance and I suppose I trusted the bank to not pull something like this (silly me). For some inexplicable reason the few times I did see the charges I've assumed up until this point that these were mandatory and came with the card not supposedly 'optional' programs. Two seconds later I'd somehow forget about it. Them constantly changing the names of the 'services' and me having not having memory of agreeing to any addons probably played a role in this.

Bottom line, I'm wondering how much of any cash I can get back if any...unfortunately its over a long period of time. Doing some research I can find a lot of complaints about the payment protector a scant few about id protection but no real solutions other than to cancel it. Anybody have some experience with this sort of thing that may help?

If I were a bank, my response would be "you've been paying for a service and you've received that service so we can't refund you. We can only cancel the payments for next month".
Basically, you're saying to them "I know I've been paying for insurance, but seeing as I haven't made a claim yet, can I have my payments back and we'll pretend I was never insured?". If everyone who didn't claim could do that, they'd go broke.

If you're a really valued customer (i.e. you've got debt and pay them interest each month), then you might be able to act all offended (not abusive) about the fact that you were tricked into signing up for this service to the customer service department enough that they put you through to the customer care department, who might show you that the bank's a nice guy and credit you for those services you didn't want.

Unless you have actually provided some form of authorisation for them to enrol you in these programs in the first place, you will be able to claim the entire sum of money back. However I would look very closely at whether you have given a tacit approval for those actions i.e. ticked checkbox, signed an extra place etc. There is usually more than sufficient commercial case law as well statute laws to support legal action to regain your money (obvious exceptions being countries that don't bother about the law).

I cannot stress enough though that you need to check your paperwork or obtain information from your company as to what approval they used. As long as you can clearly establish that no approval was obtained then you will get your money back....though tbh the legal / red tape / time involved will probably annoy the hell out of you. You might also consider checking with your government ombudsman/fair trade type body. If you find that you have given an approval no matter how weak it might be..you are sweet out of luck...unless you can establish the approval was somehow gained through a deceptive or misleading act. My advice is first thing to do is: Cancel the services

Here's a question, legally speaking if I cancel the program without disputing the fees will it remove whatever (little) ability I have to contest it in the future if I want to? I want to cancel as soon as possible but I was wondering about this.

Cancelling the service does not erode your right to legally pursue. You may however have a time window (very dependent on your country's laws etc) within which you need to begin legal action. If you have to sign an exit-contract i.e. over the web or something -- READ IT! but then my advice these days in dealing with anything corporate is read it until your eyes bleed, then read it again.

I actually have to disappear for the moment. Gf's woken up. Will come back to add to this post in a couple of hours.
And back again.

To reiterate. My advice to you is the following:

1.) Cancel your services - if you cancelling the services requires you to sign a form or gives a reference to a ToC link on the web - read it carefully before signing out. If, in the ToC you come across a clause that implies that any rights you have to litigation are extinguished on cancellation of said service then you need to get in touch with your credit card company. To be honest though - such a clause would be very unusual and most likely challengeable in court.

2.) Given that I have no idea what country you are from I can't really point you to an appropriate body to check with. However what you are looking for is a consumer rights body (They are normally non-profit organisations). You want to talk with them about what your rights are and what actions you can take. In some cases these organisations can act as a representative in helping you to negotiate with the company but I wouldn't necessarily bank on it. You should also obtain information on just how much time you have available to you - dependant on country (or state) this could dramatically differ in the amount of time available to you if you seek legal resolution.

3.) Before you talk with consumer body you should ensure that you have gathered up all appropriate paperwork - as well you should check the credit card company's website. Make sure if they have an archive that you also peruse that. What you are looking for primarily is any indication of how they obtained (or failed to obtain) your approval for these services.

4.) You should check the web to see if there have been similar cases with your credit card company and try and obtain information as to how they were resolved. I did notice you mentioned that you had done some searching in your opening post. You will probably need to expand upon it.

5.) I should also point out if you are running debt on your credit card and are about to have an argument with them it would be very advisable to get rid of the debt.

6.) My last piece of advice is this. Be prepared to grind through a lot of paperwork and annoying red tape. If all goes well it might resolve itself very easily. However if it comes down to the fact that your only recourse will be to take them to court then be aware of one very important thing. Lawyers cost money. Lots of money. There are some court systems that allow you to do it solo and have procedures in place i.e. a small claims court but again it comes down to whatever legal system you live with. I should also point out in some countries; a failure to successfully sue another party can result in the prosecuting party having the defendant's legal costs applied to them.