We are a small business and have just discovered that Advanced Business Services (with the help of partner-in-crime ILD) has been illegally charging us over $50/month since Oct 08.
The charge comes through directly on one of our Verizon phone bills and is identified as ILD Teleservices and the service is identified as the Business Max service. It all looks like a legitimate part of our Verizon phone bill and is is very easy to see why it was not identified to be an unauthorized charge by our bookkeeper.
We have now talked to Advanced Business, ILD and Verizon to get this issue resolved.
Supposedly one of our employees authorized this charge, but we know that is false. We receive multiple 'scam' calls daily at all of our locations - "free yellow pages listing"; "This is AT&T/Verizon, and we need to confirm your account information", etc. I want a copy of the authorization given by the employee (taped conversation or whatever) as well as the LOA provided to Verizon.
Verizon so far has been the most helpful, though I reserve judgement until we see how quickly the refunds come and if the billing stops immediately. I do believe that Verizon receives a % for collecting on behalf of ILD and Advanced Business.
ILD & Advanced Business, however, should be put out of business - it is obvious from all of the postings found online that they are well aware of the deceit involved in these bogus charges.
ILD claims to only work with reputable companies, yet from the postings they continue to work with the same fraudulent companies over and over. They are just as big a scam as the little companies they bill for.
ILD also 'educates' us on several other sites as to what they really do - merchant processing. They are set up to treat our phone accounts as credit cards. How did this happen? How can such a thing be allowed?
Now, we are being forced to go through our phone bills with a fine-tooth comb just as we would go through a credit card bill. It is ridiculous and has to stop.
If you have been victimized by ILD or Advanced Business Services or any other similar cramming scheme, please report it. File a complaint with the FCC, the FTC, the Attorney General, write to your state representatives, etc. Ask them why we aren't protected from these scams.
And, also be sure to ask your phone company to "bill block" so that the phone company can't bill 3rd party charges to you (but verify each month!).
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