Great Barrier Reef (aka GBRonline.com) notified me that they would stop offering ISP services and PeoplePC would be my new ISP unless I opted out. I contacted GBR and told them I had no intention of doing business with PeoplePC and do not under any circumstances give them my financial information.
On February 7 I noticed a debit to my checking account from People PC. I called my bank and told them this was not a valid debit and will be formerly filing a request to dispute the charge.
I called People PC on the same day to notify them of the mistake. I was told that I failed to "opt out" of an agreement with GBR and them and therefore must pay the charge. I explained that this was a mistake and that their connection records would show we had never called or connected to their network.
Additionally, they should easily see that we had never setup the account for connection. The representative affectively stated that this didn't matter; they would collect the $10.95 anyway. I was aggravated that I would be charged to begin with, but furious that People PC would have the arrogance to refuse a refund!
I do not yet know if I'll be able to successfully dispute the charge, but I can't imagine that People PC can legally place charges against my funds when I never agreed, nor provided them the information to do so. As far as I'm concerned, they could just as easily have stolen the debit card information and fraudulently concocted an account for the purposes of embezzling the funds.
If I had received notification that I COULD begin a contract with People PC by taking some affirmative action, that would be reasonable. But, to say "you have to contact a business you've never done business with, and tell them you don't want to START doing business with them, or they'll start taking your money", well, that actually scares me.
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