I noticed on my ATT wireless bill a charge for buongiorno 4222, premium messenging services for $9.99 through Open Market, with the ATT 1 (800) as a contact for billing issues. I had no idea what the service charge was for and after looking at past bills I noticed I had been charged for the service since May 08!!! It was on my husband's cell phone and he had not signed up for the service, downloaded anything free, or visited their webiste or contacted the service in any way. He did not have old text messages on his cell phone but we assume he received a text msg from them which he cancelled out of and it activated the service charge anyway.
I contacted ATT and was told to ask for a refund from buongiorno directly and after arguing with the CSR for a half hour she refunded two out of the three months and put in a cancellation for the service. I contacted buongiorno/blinko anyway at ATT request through the number on the buongiorno website at 1800-971-2271 for a California office and spoke to a "Rachael" who insisted we signed up and confirmed the service subscription in May 08. Her records showed we had not downloaded anything through the service but we activated it, and buongiorno could NOT give any credits of any kind for service and all credit requests and billing issues must go through ATT!!! The phone connection with buongiorno was horrible and after asking "Rachael" where she was located, she said CA in a heavy accent. It wasn't until I asked her what time it was, that she admitted the call was answered by the call center in India. After calling ATT back and getting a different CSR, I felt better because this CSR said ATT can request the refunds and cancellation, and contacting the third party service is usually not productive.
I noticed that a class action suit has been filed in Florida (and Michigan I think) against this company which is based in Italy for fraudulent practices since there is/was an office for Blinko in Miami, FL. BBB gives the company a D rating and a F rating under two different company id numbers. We'll see next month if I have more charges. Blinko did cancel the subscription on their end, I did it online through ATT, and ATT CSR put in for the cancellation. I hope I am done with this shady company!
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