My local telephone bill arrived today (Verizon). On it was a charge I had not requested or authorized from a company that was only identified as OAN Services, Inc. OAN described itself as a clearinghouse agent for Greentreedata. The bill showed. 51 for State Sales Tax and 8.43 for Greentree Data setup. The total, 8.94, was listed as a non-basic service charge.
Two contact numbers were given. 1-800-627-1091 was a poorly spoken message about cancelling the service, which they failed to identify. The message abruptly ended halfway through. The second number, 1-800-892-8424, kicked me over to the first number.
The given website, www.oanweb.com, is a legitimate site. For what I do not know, most of it was in Spanish. But it had nothing to do with communications or telephone service.
I did not even bother to see what this Greentreedata is all about, but I doubt it is real.
I contacted Verizon. They told me the company provided "Enhanced Voicemail Service" and gave me a third number 215-1961. I did not attempt to call this third number, and had Verizon immediately cancel this so called service as I felt it was a scam. This was done; they "kicked the charges back to them" to quote the representative from Verizon.
I then took the number of my state communications complaint dept; and will be calling them next. I also still have my contact address for the FCC in Washington D.C. From another unrelated incident.
My message is this: READ YOUR BILL. If something is wrong, be proactive and follow through. Do not pay the bogus charges, as your payment to the bogus corporation could be funding street gangs, drug pushers, or who knows what.
Thank you.
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