I received a $9.99 surprise charge on my Verizon Wireless bill last month. Upon further investigation, it was from a third-party service called "Flycell" for some "premium text messaging service" I supposededly subscribed to. I never signed up for anything, in fact I rarely use text messaging at all since it is not included in my contract and therefore costs me $0.10 per message. After several conversations with several Verizon representatives (including managers) who claim they are not at all responsible and could do nothing about it, I did a bit of research about Flycell.com.
Flycell claims that one must do two things to sign up for their services (neither of which I ever did):
1) Go to their website and enter your mobile number and carrier.
2) Accept their terms and conditions and reply to a text message
I never received any text messages from flycell, so therefore flycell's claimed method of signing up subscribers is flauded and insecure. If this is the case, anybody could have signed me up on their website, or they could have their records incorrect.
After trying to settle this with them through over 10 emails back and forth, they "unsubscribed" me (even though I never subscribed and never received a single text message from them), and I finally called Verizon back again. Verizon claims no respnosibility, but as far as I'm concerned, they are the ones who are enabling this scam, as they are allowing flycell to charge me through them. This time, the Verizon rep put me on hold for several minutes and made several attempts to contact a live Flycell rep (something I was unable to do after several attempts at several flycell phone numbers, and leaving several voice messages with them and never recieving a return call). This Verizon rep eventually credited my account for the $9.99 I was charged by Flycell. He (as well as the other Verizon reps I talked to a few weeks ago) told me that they have receive numberous complaints about Flycell. I then told him that I want this matter investigated by Verizon management and Flycell dropped from their list of third-party services, so others don't get charged. I also let Verizon know that there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of complaints on many consumer websites against Flycell.com.
Even though my personal situation is now resolved (at least my bill has been credited) although Verizon likely took a hit for that one... I plan on pursuing this further and fighting against flycell.com. I will continue following up with Verizon on this incident until they discontinue their reciprocal billing agreement with Flycell.com.
Flycell.com has not only commited identity theft and scammed me out of my money (using my Verizon account as a means of doing so), but they are doing fraudulent business practices, and deceptive advertising as I have found out from reading other's complaints. Flycell.com is a child company of Acotel.
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