AN FYI about phone bill cramming

[perdidobay]

Today I got an email from AT&T showing the amount my credit card would be charged for my home phone bill (I have automatic bill pay). When I saw the amount was $20 higher than normal, (we never call long distance on our home phone) I checked out my bill online and saw two transactions from a company called Techmax Solutions for "monthly service fees".
A tollfree long distance number was provided for questions about billing.
When I googled this number I found out it is a scamming company...called cramming, in which they bill fraudulant charges on AT&T Verizon and other phone company accounts.

Just an FYI to check your phone bill carefully each month if you don't already.
I hate scammers

 

[Piglet]

Why is this legal and why does the phone companies allow these companies to do this??? This just happened with a company I work for and one of our employees gave a false name when one of these scammers called. They just found out that this company has been billing them for almost 2 years!!!! We really need to remember to read those bills!!!!

 

[pixiewings71]

I had something similar on DD13s new cell number, it's auto billed but I check it anyway, the first month was super high (4 new phones) but last months was still too high so I went over it in detail. Turned out it was from the website solow.com, and it was from the person who the phone before we did. I had the number blocked and called customer service, they had me do all these resets to the phone and said "it should be good" I told them if it isn't good I'm getting her a new number on the next bill....which is the bill we will get this month. They did credit 1 month of charges back since they couldn't prove DD had signed up, DBF and I went to the site and she'd never been there, she didn't even know what it was.....

But yes, definitely check your bills!

 

[RNMOM]

I had something similar happen to me many years ago. I was switched to a different long distance provider without my knowledge and didn't find out until I tried to use my calling card. This was before cell phones. What a mess to fix. I got back to Sprint finally. I think laws have been changed so they can't do this anymore. I am really glad we bundle our phone, cable and internet now. Love free long distance.

 

[dsny1mom]

I've had to deal with this twice in the past several months. What they are doing isn't slamming. Slamming is illegal and it involves a LD company switching your LD carrier without your approval.

This is what AT&T told me. People visit a web site and fill out a form type of screen asking *seemingly* harmless info. Name, phone number. etc. to be able to use the website What the web site does is then use the phone number and name to add charges to the exisiting phone bill. The astrology web sites are known for doing this. They put it in the fine print, that most people don't usually read, that the person filling out the info will be signed up for voice mail or other not wanted phone services.

I know what my monthly phone bill should be and when I got one for $20 more I looked at it in great detail and called the toll free number the scam company is required to provide on legit phone bill. They gave me a confirmation number for a credit and then I called AT&T, gave them the conf number and they put the charge in a dipute mode until the credit appears. This happened twice to my bill, both times due to one of my adult daughters going to an astrology web site.

Sadly what these companies are doing is NOT illegal. AT&T told me they have to by law allow acess to other companies to their bills otherwise they would be breaking the law.

So yes, watch your phone bills AND tell everyone in your family to NEVER reveal the families or their phone number on the internet to be able to access a site.

dsny1mom