On June 15 my car broke down and I needed to make a call from a pay phone, but didn't have any change to make the call. I, therefore, made the call from a pay phone but dialing zero and asking the operator if I could make a local call and charge it to my debit card. A call which would have cost me 75 cents for three minutes, had I had the change.
They took my card number, expiration date, and security code number and proceeded to connect my call. The phone rang three times and then went directly to voice mail. I left a brief message and hung up the phone. The call couldn't have consisted of more than 10 to 20 seconds total time.
I attempted to make the same call to the same local number from a different payphone a few minutes later and ironically spoke with the same operator who had assitted me with my first phone call. However, there was once again no answer and I hung up before reaching the recorded voice mail.
On that day, I had at least $25.00 on my debit card. Then on June 23 I got paid and added more money to my debit card for paying bills, etc.
On June 30 upon reviewing my transaction history for my debit card I saw that there was indeed one charge from Legacy Long Distance for the amount of $1.00, which seemed reasonable to me, even though I never was connected or spoke with anyone. However the my bank listed the type of transaction as a POS Pre-Authorization.
I am not sure why the charge was listed as that type, but my bank tells me that it is only a charge that I actually get charged for if the type of transactionn is listed as a POS Purchase.
Then my transaction record showed that on June 26, two weeks from the original day that I attempted to make the calls; Legacy Long Distance charged me for three separate charges. One for $15.00, one for $30.00, and one for $30.00. Totaling $75.00. These three charges were listed as the type POS Purchase.
I got on the phone and called Legacy Long Distance's customer service center and spoke with a lady and asked her why they had charged my debit card for a total of $75.00, two weeks after the actual day that I had used the payphones for calls that were local and were not even connected as no one answered the phone, that would have cost me 75 cents each had I paid with coins, and even that would have been returned to me being that no one answered the phone.
She gave me the run around for every angle and every question and every complaint that I gave her. Her final explanation to me was that on June 15 when I attempted to make the calls, she told me my bank denied the charges, which is not true according to my bank, as there was money on my card at the time the calls were made.
I insisted that Legacy refund me my money that they charged my debit card and she was not only unsympathetic, but she was rude and furthermore she told me that they could rightfully do what they did and she refused to take the charges back.
The next day I called my bank and discussed the situation with them. The quickly suggested that I file a complaint against the Legacy Long Distance Company and I agreed and is what we are now in the process of.
I will never use a payphone again, especially using my debit card for a local call. Emergency or not. And I will never trust a long distance company again. What happened to the good old days when you dialed zero on a phone and spoke with an operator who was not working for a corrupt company, sitting behind the phone like a wolf in sheep's clothing. What kind of person, employee, and/or company preys on innocent people, especially in the midst of an emergency situation?
What kind of company purposefully and deceitfully and very unprofessionally never quotes their fees or informs you of the cost of the call you would like to make so you can at least have a choice to make the call or not?
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