I was a victim several months ago to AT&T charges on my Bell South bill for $300. At the time I was on an autopay w Bell South, so I didn't check the bills as promptly as I should have. As soon as I saw the charges for int'l calls I contacted Bell South who told me since bills were paid I had no recourse. *If you autopay phone bill. Stop immediately.
Numerous calls to AT&T all informed me that charges were valid & there was nothing I could do. When I asked for a # to file a complaint... Get this... There is no phone number, website or fax for complaints they must be in writing and mailed the old fashioned way. This is obviously to discourage complaints. I was so angry that even if it had been $10 I was not about to drop it. Not only did I write a letter to AT&T, but one to Bell South also and with each I sent copies of the letters I sent to US Fed Trade Comm (Wash, DC), US Fed Communications Comm (Wash, DC) and Florida Public Service Commission (Tallahassee, FL). Within weeks I was receiving phone calls & mailed from all of the above. Charges were removed and refunded to my account. *Don't sit back, fight!
Now, I check my bill thoroughly and believe it or not it's happened again, this time with charges by ILD Teleservices, Inc. (corp listed as ILD Telecommunications, Inc. With FL Secretary of State) as a billing agent for 'Optical Telephone Corporation'. I contacted Bell South who recorded the complaint but advised me to contact ILD. I did and can you believe that I didn't ask for charges to be removed. The cust serv agent asked me billing phone number and name, then immediately told me charges of $18 would be removed within 30-90 days. Why would ILD offer to remove charges I didn't even request to be taken off??? We'll see if they actually are removed or not.
IMPORTANT!!! The numbers they are charging me for are legitimate local businesses and each call is less than $1 with a couple $2-3.00. There are 2 calls starting @7:09pm for 13 and 28 minutes each. Looking closely at call times all of the calls in August (08) have a start time of xx: 08 and all of the calls in September (09) have a start time of xx: 09. They are billing short calls but have about $10 in monthly & connection fee. Most consumers look for large charges that stand out but if you imagine the millions of phone bills they can tack on $20 to, only a fraction makes you pretty wealthy, considering from the looks of this website there are complaints going back to 2001.
Once again I will be sending my letters, if not for myself then to try to stop these bas&%^$s!!! Enough letters to FTC, FCC & PSC might help. They say only the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Good Luck
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