My AT&T DSL bill showed up with 3 other company charges. USBI (long distance service), OAN (e-fax service) and ILD (voice mail service).
I called AT&T and they immediately put a "third-party block" on my account so that no one can add services/charges to my account again. I was then advised to call the phone numbers provided for the companies in question on my phone bill to cancel/dispute the charges.
After calling the phone numbers listed for each of these companies, 2 of them gave me the same IP address (which is no longer a viable link) and the 3rd one gave me the website where the services were signed up for. The website was www.usprizedraw.com.
All three companies did immediately cancel the service, at my request, and are issuing credits for the charges except for USBI. USBI would not issue a credit until they had emailed me the online application that was used to sign up for the service. Upon receiving the copy of the online application, it was noted that my home phone number was used but the name, address and email of the person who signed up was someone in a small town about 15 miles from where I live (assuming that the information on the application was valid)... Someone I don't even know.
I inquired with USBI as to how someone got my information and they said that often times, people will fill out personal information on a website and click the "agree" or "accept" box without reading the fine print.in the fine print it states that they are being signed up for a service and that charges will apply. Sometimes these people use their own phone number and other times they make one up (hence my phone number being charged).
Either way, if a person is entering contests for prizes on a website, shouldn't there be something more visible than the "fine print" to tell them that they are being signed up for a fee based service? It's up to us to read the fine print (buyer beware) but this site makes it appear as though you're just getting a chance to win anything from and xbox 360 to iphones, etc., not advertising phone services! That's false advertising!
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