I received charges on my most recent phone bill (July '09) from a "Correctional Billing Services" company called "T-NETIX TELECOMMUNICATIONS". I was appalled at the "other misc. Services" that this company charged me in addition to the very expensive charges for the actual phone calls made from a Rockville, Indiana Correctional Facility. The cost of the phone calls were high enough, they didn't need to add on any extra fees to my account like they did.
These phone calls were added to my AT&T phone bill which is my home telephone service. They not only charged me a huge amount for each phone call ($8.25 for 27 minutes) they also tacked on misc. Charges such as: "May Federal Universal Service Fund charge $0.93; May Federal regulatory recovery fee $1.99; May Bill statement fee $2.49 and June bill statement fee $2.49 = Total misc. Charges = $7.90 plus the charges for the actual phone calls. (AND plus tax)
I had charges on my phone bill from a different Correctional Billing Company (EMBARQ payphone services) that Michigan uses for their phone services for all Michigan Correctional Facilities. They only charge $1.80 for a 15 minute phone call from Michigan Prisons. There are no additional misc. Fees charged. They do not take advantage of Prisoners or their families like this "T-NETIX Telecommunications" company does. Manufacturing different charges and adding these charges to your phone bill is really dishonest of them to do this.
When I called them regarding charges for dropped calls and these misc. Charges for statement fees etc. And I asked them for a credit for all of these additional charges they informed me that I would have to go out on the internet and find them & contact them regarding my complaints. They said that they were unable to give credits over the phone. They also lied and said these additional charges that I complained about such as the "May & June statement fees" were actually charges from my phone company (which they aren't).
My phone company does not charge "statement fees" to bill calls for correctional billing companies. This I know. I get billed for calls every month from Embarq for Michigan Correctional phone calls and there are no other misc. Fees added to my bill at all. They only charge $1.80 for each 15 minute phone call.
I believe that this company rips off all Inmates and their families because of the huge amounts that they charge for their phone calls (almost $9.00 for a 27 minute call) plus all of the extra manufactured misc. Charges added to the phone call charges. They know that they do not have a choice as to who they can use for these phone calls so they can pretty much get away with what ever they want to charge for these Correctional phone calls.
I think that somebody needs to do something about the way that this company rips people off. I also noticed that when I went out to the internet that there is a whole lot of people complaining about how this company is ripping everyone off and overcharging on all of their correctional phone call charges and also how hard it is to get anywhere with them. They seem to give everyone the "run around".
0 comments