My Verizon bill is paid automatically through my bank account, but I still get a paper bill. Sometimes I don't remember to look at it, but last month I happened to check and noticed my Verizon bill for my home phone was a bit higher than usual. After looking more closely I noticed a charge: Agora Voice 1XSetup— $8.43 plus Va surcharge and tax totaling $8.98.
I had no idea what this charge was for and after questioning my husband, we decided it was some kind of mistake. My husband called Verizon to question it and was told by the person in billing: "I don't know" when he asked what it was for. He was told he would have to call a different 800# for the company in question. He called and was told by the operator there that someone named * (no one we knew) had authorized this on our account. There is no one in our household with this name. We had it taken off and blocked off our account. Then my husband called Verizon back to find out how someone else can have something ordered and charged to our account. He had to ask for a supervisor.
This person was more helpful and basically described the situation as a new problem that Verizon is trying to handle. She did give her name and e-mail with instructions to write if we had more problems.
Here it is a month later and my bill reads: Agora Voice Monthly Fee $8.23 plus Va surcharge and tax totalling: $8.77. I also see where I have been credited my account $17.76. I call again myself to try and figure out what is going on. I get someone from Verizon billing department to see why this is still there. I get, "I don't know." Of course this is after holding for an extremely long time. I immediately demand to talk to a supervisor and after holding for another good long time, I explain everything to the supervisor, who says she sees where we had called and had this charge removed, blah blah, but that we need to call this Agora company. I again call Agora, they assure me everything has been taken care of. I ask them how did someone get this put on MY account.
This time she gives me a name and I recognize it as my teenage son's old buddy. They (and Verizon both hint that these cases are usually caused by a teen/child in the home and that it is done through some kind of internet activity.)
Here is my issue: How can a teen (below 18) get away with charging anything on the internet without a credit card or something? How can Agora stick something on my account without my or my husband's knowledge or permission? How and why does Verizon allow this??? Is this the beginning of some major scams that are going to cause us to scrutinize every single bill we get-as if they aren't hard enough to figure out already.
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