While reviewing my office expenses for August - I noticed that our AT&T phone had gone up. Normally I don't look real close at the phone bill - but on the front page under the Billing Summary was a line called "The Billing Resource" and an amount of $34.95 which also shows up on page 10 of the invoice. On page 10 - under the Description column is the name of NETOPUS.net MTHLY INET/WEBHOST-SILVER and the amount of $34.95.
Interestingly, even though this is shown on my AT&T phone bill - AT&T will NOT correct the amount. They refer me back to "The Billing Resource" for corrective action. So... I called "The Billing Resource"... Where I spoke to an agent who after asking me numerous questions about my phone account, wanted to know the Billing Date of the invoice in questions.
On the front page of my bill it clearly says "Billing Date - Aug 22". So I read the date to the agent, who insists that I am giving her an invalid billing date. After pulling out numerous other AT&T invoices going clear back to March all which show a date of the 22nd and repeated giving her a date of Aug 22, I asked to speak to her supervisor. I was told that a supervisor was not available so I asked to hold until one became available. I was put on hold for about 10 minutes when a supervisor answered the phone.
The supervisor quickly resolved the "date" problem and told me that I would receive a credit for the amount $34.95. However, in the mean time, after pulling out months of previous AT&T invoices - I noticed that this charge showed up clear back in April. I asked to have the additional amounts removed - which she agreed to do. Basically, I ended up with 6 months of charges for $34.95 which I would never of caught had I not looked more closely at my phone bill.
Doing a few google searches on this company turned up numerous similar complaints from other consumers. What I am having a hard time understanding is why phone companies are acting as a conduit for fraudulent charges such as this! I am seriously considering changing phone companies as a result of AT&T allowing more than $200 of fradulent charges to be passed through to a loyal customer of theirs. I am certainly not a happy camper after this experience.
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