Blueridge Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Last week I opened our home phone bill and was surprised that it was $16.00 higher than it always is. So as I went looking through the itemized pages, I saw a charge of that amount for some *membership* in some online health website. Huh? I called their number and the man said that, supposedly, my hubby had gone through a 2-step security filter and had entered all the info they required to order a membership. He hadn't. I called our phone company and they said it happens all the time, and that these companies hope that you simply aren't looking that closely at your bill. :glare: They blocked companies from doing this anymore and put the $16.00 in dispute. End of story. Not. Today I opened our cell phone bill, and the SAME thing had happened to my husband's cell number, this time it was another company for some auto-lottery membership! Can anybody tell me how this can happen? I just don't know, but I am a nervous wreck wondering what will happen next. So look at your phone bills carefully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jennifer in MI Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 This happened to us twice to my teen boys. It was $9.99/month for some ring tone service! Neither of them signed up for it (I believe them!). We just called Sprint and they took it off. It is frustrating. I can't see how this is legal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jean in Newcastle Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Happens all the time. It irritates me because it's a pain in the you-know-what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrs.m Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 It happended to us almost 10 years ago. Some company was billing us for paging service. I didn't have a pager. Thanks for the reminder to check the bill!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capt_Uhura Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Thanks for the heads up. Sorry it happened to you but glad you caught it. This will get easier these days b/c most of my bills are auto bill pay and I only get a notice via email so I might not even open it up for things like telephone which never changes. I do make it a habit to check but I can just see the one month when I don't, something like that happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twilight Woods Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 happens all the time......I bought tickets from fandango once and was auto enrolled into some once a month charge membership.....they just auto charged my debit card.......so it's not just limited to the phone..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
herbalgirl Posted April 21, 2011 Share Posted April 21, 2011 Oh my word. That is ridiculous! Thank you for mentioning this... I'd never heard of it before. We will definitely be checking our bills much more closely from now on! :glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blueridge Posted April 22, 2011 Author Share Posted April 22, 2011 Thank you for making me feel like I'm not alone. :) It is a frustrating thing, and I can't believe they are allowed to do it. What a violation. Oh well, I'll be vigilant and check my bills every month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KatieJ Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 My husband is the IT guy at work, along with his engineering work..by default because no one else was doing it so he learned how. Along with that comes phone bills. He has run into these companies putting charges on their phones many many times. He always checks them out and has received all kinds of lies when he questions them. Sadly we all have to be diligient and check our bills these days. I reserved a hotel room on line one time as I have many other times, and somehow ended up paying for a host website. They insisted I knew all that when I reserved the room. Nope, I am pretty sure I would have noticed an extra 20.00 being charged for the host website. They got rid of the charge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 A friend of mine called me a couple of months ago because this had happened to her. She was calling all of her friends to warn them. Out of the 10 people she'd called, seven of them checked their bill and had the extra charge. The second time it happened my friend had to call the phone company and demand to speak with a supervisor and yelled at them to have the charge removed. She is not normally a "yeller" but they simply do NOT have ANY wiggle room in their finances and she couldn't keep paying $16 every month for something she never wanted or consciously signed up for. (The phone company will claim you signed up online, but it's some sort of obscure thing you click on and don't even know what you're clicking on that signs you up.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tess in the Burbs Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 you should know that Verizon allows medical facilities to charge your medical bill to your phone #....guess how we found out? Someone with the number previously charged all sorts of stuff and we were always having to call about it. So if you know a valid phone # with Verizon and it's not yours you can charge your medical bills to the new person! it's wrong, just wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannah C. Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Something similar happened to us, too. My dh's number had somehow been signed up for some music radio service. I called to get it canceled and ended up paying the extra $10 two months in a row because somehow the "timing wasn't right" or something. I didn't realize this was common!! I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it. I don't do automatic bill pay precisely because of things like this - if there's ever a big dispute I can pay them the amount I *actually* owe them and *NOT* pay the extra. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parias1126 Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 This happens usually be answering silly "apps" on Facebook. If you put your cell number in, it automatically adds you. Thei happened to my teen daughter trying to add some silly "who has a crush on you" thing or "your top followers". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannah C. Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 This happens usually be answering silly "apps" on Facebook. If you put your cell number in, it automatically adds you. Thei happened to my teen daughter trying to add some silly "who has a crush on you" thing or "your top followers". I knew there was a reason to stay clear of those apps....:glare: :glare: :boxing_smiley::rant: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jewellsmommy Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Wow. Thanks for the warning. I will be on the look out and warn my mom too. She is bad about not checking her bills closely and was just telling me that her phone bill was higher than usual.:glare: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Sherry Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Check your internet bill too. We used to have the same company provide our cable TV as our internet service but we canceled the cable TV service. For a few months the cable TV was no longer on our bill. But then all of a sudden it appeared again on our bill even though we no longer have that service. :confused: They removed the charge but I find it very strange that it suddenly showed up on our bill again for no apparent reason. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommycheryl Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Last week I opened our home phone bill and was surprised that it was $16.00 higher than it always is. So as I went looking through the itemized pages, I saw a charge of that amount for some *membership* in some online health website. Huh? I called their number and the man said that, supposedly, my hubby had gone through a 2-step security filter and had entered all the info they required to order a membership. He hadn't. I called our phone company and they said it happens all the time, and that these companies hope that you simply aren't looking that closely at your bill. :glare: They blocked companies from doing this anymore and put the $16.00 in dispute. End of story. Not. Today I opened our cell phone bill, and the SAME thing had happened to my husband's cell number, this time it was another company for some auto-lottery membership! Can anybody tell me how this can happen? I just don't know, but I am a nervous wreck wondering what will happen next. So look at your phone bills carefully. This happened to us last month. I called the phone company, was told that they let a third party add something to my bill, but I had to take care of it. Boy was I steamed! Total scam. After I contacted the third party to have the account credited, then I found out I can't block third party access to my account until the credits have reached my account. This was in the midst of some other billing issues with CenturyLink, so the whole thing left such a bad taste we contacted them about discontinuing home phone service and switching to our cell phones. They are a public utility, so you may want to report it to the PUC. I'm sure it is legal, but still a bad practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
clearycrew Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 that happened to us last year. Two different companies charged our phone bill $9.95 the same month. One was for intelidiets, I can't remember the other. They insisted I signed up, but I know I didn't. We had to have our phone company put something on our account so companies can't charge stuff to it-- shouldn't that be the default? We did end up getting refunds from both companies, but I was livid when it first happened! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emubird Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 When this happened to us, it wasn't anything we did. Some stranger put it on our bill. She called him/herself Taisha. When I called the phone company to complain, the "customer service representative" kept asking me if I was sure I wasn't Taisha. Uh, yeah, I was pretty sure. I think. We now have something on our phone acct that's supposed to block this stuff, but I still check every single month. I'm surprised the phone companies allow it as they must be spending a lot of money dealing with steamed customers, but I suppose they get some kind of kick back that makes it worth their while. My guess is eventually this will happen to enough senators and representatives that someone will think about making it illegal. In the meantime, we might want to start an email campaign to our representatives. Anybody want to take this up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joannqn Posted April 22, 2011 Share Posted April 22, 2011 Wow! I'm glad I don't have to deal with this. We prepay for each year's worth of Voice over IP phone service. All we pay monthly is somewhere in the vicinity of $3.45 monthly for the tax. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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