I noticed extra charges on my phone bill. I contacted my service Embarq for explaination - who turned me over to the company doing the 3rd party billing for a company that hides behind another company to scam money away from you. The first company doing the billing was ILD - who promised to reimburse my account for the past 2 billing cycles (Feb 08 and March 08). Silly me - I didn't get a confirmation number for the reimbursements. I also didn't see them on my new phone bill.
The only thing that ILD did for me was block my phone number from being billed through them by any other company. Which opened a door for someone else to bill me and this is where ESBI walks in. They started the billing for this 3rd party hidden company. I contacted them and they turned me over to the hidden company. Finally - at least you would think.
That company turned out to be Internet Business Association out of Carson City NV. I did get excellant customer service from agent 1041. She reimbursed me for 4 months of charges. Not the other 8 months that I had gotten charged! With taxes assessed by my phone company those charges are now a whopping $255. The company - Internet Business Association played a muffled recording of some confirmation that they said was me agreeing to a free trial web page and then to $29.95 a month if I failed to cancel it. I couldn't understand the recording and am leary to believe that it was actually me. I almost always hang up on telemarketers. Even if I had agreed to this - I would have thought to cancel it. Especially when I never looked at any website that was "made" for my company. Either way - I am out a lot of money that I will never see. I am not even sure that I will really see any credits to my phone bill for the 4 months that was promised me.
Well, the hard lesson learned is -if your state will allow it, have any 3rd party charges denied on your phone bills. You can do this by contacting your telephone service provider. Secondly, the National Do Not Call list has gotten flexible. I have re-registered, however because these companies have called us in the past they can still call contact us. So, those business that do call to pester us about free websites, free pens, free anything - get a name and a company name, write it down, keep it next to the phone, then before the conversation is over tell them to take your number off their calling lists. When they call back - notify the Do Not Call List website. They have a spot for companies that do not honor requests.
Third party billers like ILD and ESBI are just doing their jobs and they do it well. They obviously don't do the billing for free for these hidden other companies. So, I don't feel horrible implicating them in this complaint. We are all just tiny wallets open to anyone who can pass one over on us. I wish for a world when the only pick pockets where found on the street!
Deb
Glencoe, Minnesota
U.S.A.
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