I was looking over my ATT bill today and discovered a 14.95 cent amount by "Enhanced Billing Services" for MYIPRODUCTS IMAIL. Having no Idea what it was for, I called the number on my bill and got to the MYIPRODUCTS IMAIL billing dept. (1.800.286.4455).
I asked what this was for. The lady mentioned the product where you have an email address that links to some sort of 800 number where anyone around the country can call you without charge.
I explained that I'd never ordered these services. She said that I must have clicked on some banner add for free services - something like "COOLSAVINGS" or some other one, where to get the free service you agree to join this crew.
She said that I'd gotten an email to my personal email (which I NEVER use for solicitations - I use another one that gets spammed all the time to sign up for stuff) which basically confirmed my order and started the billing. Apparently by clicking "YES" on some sort of promotion my information was passed to this crew.
Nevermind that I find online "get-free-stuff" adds a ripoff to begin with, I found this doubly troubling because somehow they'd gotten my name from some company from whom I'd purchased something.
The lady was quick to tell me how I'd "probably" signed up for this, suggesting that they get lots of people who challenge this charge. She said that she would cancel it immediately. I asked how long I'd been billed for this. She had to transfer me to another person who could see it on their computer. She also said that she would put a block on my number so that it would never be signed up for this again.
The other person (named Dawn, explained the whole banner add and the clicking "yes" thing which got me signed up with them; however, she was able to determine that I'd been billed since 01/08, that I'd never used the email or the 800 number, and offered to reimburse me for the whole service, which I appreciated. She said it would take 2 billing cycles because she has to submit the credit to their billing company - probably "Total Enhanced Billing Services", who would then send it to ATT to apply the credit. On the bill.
While I appreciated her quick willingness to reimburse my hard-earned dollars, I had to ask for some sort of confirmation that she was going to do this. She said she would. This is very, very troubling. It seems to me that there should be a clear statement somewhere on an add that says that you are agreeing to a services that will deduct an amount from your account. I'd recently signed up for a trial service and saw in several locations where they said clearly that after a certain time I would be billed.
I have NO idea how these people got the approval to bill my account. I will post a followup with the email message sent me, if I do get it.
0 comments