I noticed a charge for $34.95 added to my AT&T phone bill. The charge was from Payment One. I called AT&T and they informed me that the charge was from a 3rd party and under FCC regulations, they are to allow 3rd party charges unless the customer blocks them. So I called Payment One and they said they were collecting the charges on behalf of American Business IT Solutions and they gave me their number to call. I called American Business IT Solutions and they told me that my husband had authorized to have them build a 5 page website for our business and they even gave me the web address. I looked up the site and our company information was on the site (the same info you can find in any phonebook). The site was very minimal and certainly a cookie cutter site that we would never want. Plus, I know that my husband would never authorize anything because he doesn't answer the phone. All calls, telemarketers, billing and services are my area of our business. When I asked if they had any signed proof, recordings of the call or any evidence to convince me that their allegations were true, they said it was a verbal authorization and they don't mail or email confirmations. So now I knew it was a scam so I started looking on the internet and saw that this is called cramming and that your phone company isn't obligated to verify any charges nor do they profit from them so they can't be expected to spend resources to verify the charges. American Business IT Solutions only agreed to discontinue the site and charges. I called Payment One again and they agreed to credit all the charges and they should appear on my bill in 1-2 billing cycles. If this is what happens, then my only complaint is with American Business IT Solutions even though I think Payment One knows what they are doing. My advise is to question every charge on all your phone bills.
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