HELP! Unauthorized messaging charges on cell

[debbiecarr98]

Has anyone encountered this? If so what if any recourse do I have? I started receiving this small number on my cell phone with horoscopes, etc, and i was annoyed by it, and should have pursued it because apparently I have gotten charged 9.99 a month since June for it! Verizon credited me part of it, but I am still in the hole 30.00. They claimed when I called that I signed up for the service and have opportunities to cancel, but I never read the messages, just deleted them.

 

[Blue.Fairy2]

Has anyone encountered this? If so what if any recourse do I have? I started receiving this small number on my cell phone with horoscopes, etc, and i was annoyed by it, and should have pursued it because apparently I have gotten charged 9.99 a month since June for it! Verizon credited me part of it, but I am still in the hole 30.00. They claimed when I called that I signed up for the service and have opportunities to cancel, but I never read the messages, just deleted them.

this happened to us on ATT and they refunded all the money and then it still was being charged on our bill for almost a year more! I would call every month or two and get it refunded and tell them they promised to fix the problem and each month they said they had. Eventually it stopped. So much hassle. Call back and talk to a supervisor tell them you did not know you were signing up for anything and you refuse to pay it.

 

[debbiecarr98]

Were your charges directly from ATT or a third party? I should clarify mine were not from Verizon, they claim it was a third party that bills and they(verizon) were willing to refund the 3 mos because they have had so many problems with this. So, they gave me the number to the place and it was a billing company supposedly that forwarded me to another company via email several days later. It is a place that claims I signed up for horoscopes via text for 9.99 a month. Seriously. I said who would pay 9.99 for horoscopes on their phone and she said lots of ppl find it entertaining. She offered one month refund, but when I asked to speak to a supervisor they said they would refund 75 percent.I didnt tell her verizon had given me the 3 mos, so I think that I will get all the money back...I will continue to watch my bill as obviously I have not been doing, or I would have noted this sooner! Thank so much.... I still cant believe the audacity of these places doing this!

 

[torinsmom]

This happened a few times when my DS had Virgin Mobile. I couldn't figure out where his money was going. When I looked online I saw he was getting a horoscope one and a joke a day one. He said he got texts asking if he wanted to get horoscope/joke daily and he clicked yes. He didn't read the small print. I think they get most people that way. I got the charges taken off. Now he is on my AT&T account and he has a block on purchases on his phone(as do I). Those places are very sneaky!

Marsha

 

[Swimalie]

If you don't do texting (like me) get Verizon to block texts and then they can't do it to you and maybe the charges will go away. Verizon will also allow you to block a number for $4.99 a month, which is cheaper than what you have been paying for the horoscopes.

 

[Reagan&Co.]

We had this happen with my DD's phone, except we were being billed for porn. She is blocked from video, so there was no porn on her phone, but a $9.99 charge appeared each month. It was an automatic billing to our phone bill from a Video On Demand site, and there was no phone number to contact to cancel.

Verizon said our only recourse was to change the phone number, so that they did not have a number to charge any longer.

Good luck! This actually took about 6 months to resolve/figure out the problem with Verizon. You just need to catch the right person, I guess....

 

[Blue.Fairy2]

a third party. I also put a block on the phone so no others could be charged this service was free with ATT.

 

[bear_mom]

Something similiar happened to me and I had Verizon put a block on premium texts. I can still receive normal texts, but the ones that you get charged 9.99 from are blocked.

Emily

 

[momejay]

I was paying Sprint to block text from DD's phone. At first we had 300, but her friends went crazy & we had to restrict it. After blocking all text we got a bill for $89 for texts most she received from Sprint to inform her that she could no longer use texting service. It took us 4 months to get it fixed. We switched to AT&T & we now pay an extra $5 a month to monitor her texts. When she gets close to her limit we can shut her texting off before she goes over her limit.

 

[tasha99]

I had something like this happen a few years ago on my phone--about $75 total in daily texted jokes. Verizon was no help at all. I called about 3 times, the last time in tears because it was my Christmas money that I ended up spending, but their customer service would not budge. I finally wrote the Better Business Bureau and added in my complaint that I would be writing to the Attorney General about how I got slammed for premium phone messaging and Verizon participated by collecting the money for the scam company. I got a $75 credit on my bill from Verizon, but it was much more work to get that than it should have been.

 

[mjkacmom]

This happened to dd13 with 3 companies. I called verizon, they credited me back the $, and put a block on all of our phones. Definitely get a block put on! I know she didn't do anything on purpose - one of them was instant traffic!

 

[mjkacmom]

If you don't do texting (like me) get Verizon to block texts and then they can't do it to you and maybe the charges will go away. Verizon will also allow you to block a number for $4.99 a month, which is cheaper than what you have been paying for the horoscopes.

You can just block premium texts, which is what we do. We still have unlimited regular texting.

 

[wmharley]

if you ever send a txt to a game show or some contest, then you might get signed up without realizing it..

likewise, those raffles you see in restaurants for a free bahama cruise or vacation, where you fill in your info.. read the back, they usually have a hitch of phone service or something.

 

[debbiecarr98]

Sneaky ways to steal our money! I imagine that they get away with it with some and that must be why they do it, I just cannot fathom the thought!

 

[SandrA9810]

The only thing I ever sign up for is the red plum rewards. It's the PDA set up near the register, you enter your phone number, and they'll send you texts of specials the restaurant is offering. We like it when Planet Smoothie offers 99 cent smoothies, and every ten visits we get a free one. And there's never any charge for this.