3 months ago in February my wife noted charges appearing on our local phone bill from a company entitled "USBI" she noted that the charges were in 4 minute increments and multiples thereof. She further noted that the terminating number for these charges did not seem to exist when called to verify. My wife then contacted Verizon customer care to dispute the charges. After successive months going through what now became a routine my wife was successful in her due diligence and Verizon actually checked the termionating number in Philadelphia 1.215.732.0598 and confirmed tht indeed the Philadelphia number was bogus and non-existent! For the record these bogus charges have appeared on both our business lines and home phone bills.
At the beginning of the September billing period Verizon FINALLY agreed to block USBI from our billing statements. WELL when we received our subsequent billing statement for Septembers billing period a new company appeared named "integeretel" that was running exactly the same scam using the same bogus Philly phone number. Stragely enoguh these new charges supposedly occured in July only to be billed in September. My wife called Integretel customer care today 1.800.736.7500 and this time they went so far as to play back a brief 2 word voice recording stating my abrreviated first name "Joe" Followed by "Jim". This was supposed to be proof that we made the calls to the bogus number in Philadelphia supposedly as a directory assisted call. The calls supposedly lasted 4 minutes and 12 minutes respectively. The voice recording was not my voice.
Now Verizon is blocking Integretel, Inc. From our billing statements but stated that Integretel will still try to collect. I suspect that next we will receive charges from One Call Communications the third head of this scamming hydra.
My wife and I are getting as much documentation together as we can and will be passing this information with a formal complaint to the Vermont Consumer Protection Bureau.
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