About six months ago, my local phone bill began arriving to me via e-mail, although I never changed my preferances for receiving billing. About the same time, I noticed that my bill went up approximately $15. Since I was not receiving a paper bill which I could review in depth, but only a cover page with the amount due and date due, I was not aware what the extra charges were for, but assumed that the local service was raised.
About a month ago, I decided to swith phone companies. As I had a small credit on my local phone company bill, I received a check for that small credit about 10 days after closing my account. I thought that was the end of the account and did not worry about it at all.
Then, late last week, I received yet one more bill (via e-mail off course) from my previous local phone provider for $14.95. As I had closed the account and thought this was an error, I called them. To my utter surprise, I was told that the charges were from ESBI, and that they probably illegally attached an agreement to another web site I was using, thus when I agreed to that other web site's terms I unknowingly agreed to ESBI's terms as well.
To my amazement, this has been happening since May and my phone company knew all about it, but never once thought to contact me to let me know this was happening. The agent then gave me the phone number for ESBI (which by the way is 888-302-3724 since it's not listed anywhere on their web site) and even advised me as to the exact language to use to get a check refunded to me for services I had not authorized, as well as to request a credit on the account for the current month.
When I called, I spoke to an operator who wanted me to confirm all my personal information and I could hear her type as we talked. She then wanted to give me an overview of their services and that is when things got interesting. I pointed out to her that I did not have an account with them that I had authorized but she insisted that I did. My counter argument was that if I had authorized the account, I would know all about their services and would not need an overview. She then said that I would not know if I wanted to keep the service or not since it appeared that I did not know their services and tried again to explain the services they provide.
I asked her to show me proof of where I had agreed to their services and she said that she did not have access to that information. I asked for the account to be closed immediately (which she said that my local phone company had closed last month, but I still received a bill just last week) and a refund be sent to me. When she started hedging, I had to threaten filing a lawsuit and a report with the Better Business Bureau, before she told me that she would process a refund immediately, which I should receive in the next 7 to 10 days and that since she did all that for me, told me that I should not have a need to contact anyone else as it was all taken care of.
After hanging up and checking the internet on this issue, I found a number of other stories simmilar to mine. Altought my issue may be resolved (altought I won't know that for sure until I receive a refund check and it clears) I felt that I needed to tell my story, and especially to make available their phone number since it is not listed anywhere on their website. Again, that phone number is 888-302-3724.
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