They were very gracious to give me a phone over a year ago, and a service package. Since then they failed to bill me on a timely basis and then all of a sudden apologized for their failure and began billing me with an attempt to "catch up" their mistake after nearly 5 months of no statements. I received approximately 3 months of these types of bills, but never the full, itemized statements I was promised. Then, the bills stopped coming again until recently when they left a message on my ceullar voicemail and cut off my service until I contacted them. Apparently, they had "lost" my account and needed me to fax them my information, none of which has changed in the year I've had their service, before my service would continue. I had no choice and I didn't see any harm with it.
Then, I received 2 bills for the past few months' service, totalling over $1,000 in back charges they had not billed. However, I didn't get itemized statements for the past months, just an overdue balance. Not only do I not know what my usage was in past months, but the 2 statements they did send me show a 50% increase in the usage of minutes. Since I did not receive statements on a timely basis, I was not able to monitor the usage and perhaps prudently decide that I needed to increase my minutes in a package plan. Packaged minutes are billed at a much lower rate than minutes once you reach your limit. So, Worldcom not only is trying to get away with not providing timely and accurate statements, they are also attempting to bill me premium for over-usage of minutes at their highest rate without the benefit of choosing a more appropriate package to meet my needs and be more cost-effective for me. Rather, by their actions they profit big!
This is definitely a scam they have apparently tried with others. I have seen on message boards complaints about their billing services and how they "forget" to bill you and then expect you to just roll over and pay them in full for extra minutes. Buyer beware!
Further, when you call the phone number on the statement, you either get a busy signal or a phone message that due to a demand for their services they are experiencing high call volume and to call back later. I have tried to reach them for over a month, and have even called other phone numbers for Worldcom but am told the phone number on my statement is the number handling my account. I suspect their high call volume is not due to a demand for their services but from a demand for correcting their blatant errors from others they are trying to rip off.
Additionally, I have daily problems with my phone holding a charge. I cannot afford to drop service and go elsewhere and pay the add-on charges these companies collect. They get you coming and going. There are activation fees and there are fees for terminating services. Sprint is the only carrier that offers service in my home area, so I would essentially be getting the same service just a different billing agent. I am a captured market and they are capitalizing from this big time.
If anyone has any suggestions how to remedy this, please contact me.
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