When I received my final bill from Verizon after moving out of their service area, I noticed a charge form "Other Providers". Since service had been discontinued on the line, there should not have been any charges at all on the bill. The charge was for $14.95, billed through a company named ILD Teleservices, Inc on behalf of Members Edge. I called ILD and asked them what the charge was for. They claimed it was for voice mail service provided by Members Edge. This is ridiculous, since I had voice mail on the line from Verizon. I had never subscribed to this company's service.
The rep seemed very used to this kind of complaint and I asked him how long this had been going on. He went back three months and found it had been billed each of the three months he had access to. He readily agreed to refund the billed amount and block Members Edge from further billing. It all seemed just too slick for my taste.
I checked online and found thousands of complaints against ILD and Members Edge for false billing to Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, and other customers. This is big business at $14.95 per month from thousands of customers!
I then called Verizon to find out what their role was in this. I was told that they have to accept this type of billing because they have no idea whether it is valid or not. I pressed them to tell me more about the scam, but they were hesitant to say anything. When I told them I was a Verizon retiree, they loosened up and said that this goes on all the time. They advised me to check every item on the bill every month, because you never know when some unscrupulous company will try to slip a fraudulent charge onto your phone bill.
They agreed to pass this complaint on to an investigative unit they can go back further in the billing records to establish a start date for this fraud. I strongly urge everyone to check their phone bill for this scam.
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