Qwest (formerly US West) took money from my checking account without my approval. I was behind on my phone bill, so I called them to do a payment over the phone, which was done no problem. But they told me that I needed to give them an additional $200.00 for a deposit. They were told that I didn't have the money and wouln't for two weeks. The person I talked to said that they would wave the deposit for the two weeks period but that I had to call them back with the payment in two weeks or my service would be interupted. About two days later I received an overdraft statement from my bank for the $200.00 deposit. I immediatley called Qwest and told them that I didn't give them the approval to take THAT amount from my account. I was then told that they would put it back, but my phone would be shut off.
When I told them about the conversation that I had with their representative, they told me that there was nothing noted on my account.
The deposit was for a cell phone which they deactivated two weeks later. This was around November 5th. On November 19th I called them up and told them to apply the money to my regular phone. I was told it was all set up and would be taken care of on my next bill.
When I received my next bill the money had not been applied to my account and there was a $100.00 bogus charge on there as well. I called them back and was told that the reason it wasn't done was because the person working on it had timed out (apparently they only have 30 minutes to work on each customer's account), so it never got done. But that it would be taken care of this time. As for the $100.00 charge I was told would be waved? There was nothing noted on my account stating as much.
I contacted the FCC, finally in January they credited my account the $200.00 and reversed the $100.00 charge.
But as far as them taking money out of my account without my permission? Nothing was done. If I had done that to someone, I would be in jail right now. It's outright theft.
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