Did you know they could do this?
By katsmeow1213
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
United States
October 17, 2009 8:33am CST
I got my phone bill for my basic landline phone. I have very basic services, no call waiting, no caller ID, none of that. Normally my bill is around $30 a month.
This month there was an extra $15 charge on my bill for some voice mail service?!?! I never signed up for that! And I don't believe I have it on my line either.
So I called the phone company to figure out what that was all about, and to get it taken off my bill!
First of all, this service was provided by a third party... not my phone company. So we had to get a different company on the line.
The girl at the phone company told me that often times things like this are in the fine print when you sign up for a free trial or some similar type offer. But I still fought it because I never give out my real phone number when I sign up for free trials... I usually give a fake one!
So we get the 3rd company on the phone, and she says she can look up the details of the order. She gave me the website which is was ordered on, something I'd never heard of. She also gave me the e-mail address used to order the service (it was mine, but not one I'd used since March, and this was ordered in August). She also says it was ordered at 1am... I'm never up and online at that hour!!
So, someone used my old e-mail address and my phone number and suddenly I'm seeing unauthorized charges on my phone bill!! Thankfully they did remove the charges and the service, and my phone company is going to put a block on my account so that this never happens again!
Has anything like this ever happened to you? Did you know people can charge you for services that you don't want just by typing in your phone number? Are you careful about the information you give when you sign up for offers or free trials (especially those who do this on GPT sites)??
1 person likes this
8 responses
@jillhill (37354)
• United States
17 Oct 09
I had a securtiy service on a charge card that I never ordered....and didn't use the card. It took an act of God to get it off.....it's another one of those third party deals where they just put it on and you have to catch it....they also took the charges off....after I talked to about 3 different people....I guess you have to make sure you watch everything or it will cost you! It shouldn't be that way!
@katsmeow1213 (28716)
• United States
17 Oct 09
No it shouldn't. It also shouldn't be so easy for someone to just add junk to my bills. Basically all you need is my phone number and you can add all sorts of craziness to my bills!! That doesn't seem right.
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
16 Feb 10
Yes, this happened to me too for 3 months..said it was nothing they the phone company could do that I would have to call a number to have it fixed.. but I had to pay the money and they would reimburse me that back as credit within 30-90 days well, first month it was $17 then $15,$13, I paid and yes they did reimburse me but it was a hassle to have to pay more then what I was supposed to. I don't have long distance and these were billed for long distance and I was like what the...and called and that is what they said anyhow.said it happened all the time and was something they couldn't really explain. my phone bill is almost $12 a month..and for it to double and then some.. had me worried especially since it happened right after I had fibernet installed..which it never not once did it when I had dial up..
@dawnald (85146)
• Shingle Springs, California
19 Oct 09
I get this on my cell phone every so often. I have learned that when you take one of those internet IQ tests (or whatever) and they ask you for your phone number, you put in a fake one. Annoying, time wasting wish it were not legal...
@SomeCowgirl (32191)
• United States
17 Oct 09
I would definitely be mad, and wanting to know if they could track the person who did this, and see if the law couldn't be involved. I'm glad you got it all straightened out though!
@froggieslover (3069)
• United States
18 Oct 09
It seems like this happens quite often but I have never dealt with it or even heard of anything like this happening before. I can say that it hasn't happen to me because there has never been a change in my bill but I also know that I will also be keeping my eyes open from now on. I don't really do free trials but i do sign up for sweepstakes as well as a lot of freebies. I use a different phone number or don't give one when I do the freebies but I do give my real number when i do the sweepstakes only because most of the time that is how they contact you. Are you saying this is one of the ways this can happen as well?
This is not right that they can do this and am sorry that so many people have had to deal with this happening~ Some companies and people have way to much time on their hands to want to do this to another person and family.
@FloridaLady55 (10)
• United States
17 Oct 09
I had something similar happen to me a couple of years ago when I decided to try one of those VoIP lines where you get your phone service through your computer. Not only was the reception terrible, but they charged me for "email over phone" which I did not ask for. They did remove it , but I ended up canceling that service and going back to a landline anyway.
@raclie (1732)
• Singapore
17 Oct 09
It was not something as serious as paying extra for phone bills...
My house telephone was given free trial of voice mail... We were pretty annoyed with it cause by the time the phone was picked up, the line was cutted off... We called the company to stop the servicing
