ILD Teleservices billed me for a month's worth of fraudulent charges. Rip-off! Atlanta Georgia
I received my SBC monthly phone bill today, expecting to see a bill around $43. On the last page of the bill was an itemized statement from ILD Teleservices; the total was 412 minutes of calls; $56.30 in fees. The times listed for every single call was 12:08 am. They were billing this on behalf of Optical Telephone Corp. of which I have not been able to find a mailing address, nor a website.
I called their billing questions #(800-433-4518) and told "Annette" I was disputing the charges and I wanted them to be removed from my SBC bill immediately.
Her response was; she was tired of people calling with complaints on this and she would go ahead and credit my SBC account, which would take 1 - 3 months!!! I called SBC, got a slight run-around with them as well... after everything was said and done, SBC has a claim on my account, and if the ILD Teleservices company doesn't get the credit to them by Dec. 13th, I will have to pay the charges.
This is absolutely ridiculous!! I have not made a long distance call on my home phone in over a year; I dont even have a long distance carrier--only SBC for my local calls. I use my husband's cell phone to make long distance calls. I feel there should be a way for SBC not to bill for a third party -- it should come from that company. I sure hope that ILD Teleservices and Optical Telephone Corp close down, before the FCC shuts them down!!
Constance
Garden City, Kansas
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Lynn
Shreveport,Louisiana,
U.S.A.
How to handle fraudulent charges on your phone bill
#2Consumer Suggestion
Sat, September 25, 2004
Hello. I just saw this report and wanted to make a comment that hopefully will be of some assistance. I work for a large local telephone company and, unfortunately, we see this kind of thing a lot. The sad part is, by law, if another company charges something to the telephone number via the local company, most of the time we are legally bound by public service commission requirements to place that charge on the customer's bill. It's not that we don't believe the customer or are trying to give a "run-around", there just is not a lot we can do. But, what we can do in MOST cases is send the charges directly back to the company and remove them from your local bill. That way you're not liable and usually, when confronted, the fraudulent company will immediately credit the charges or "wipe the slate clean". They KNOW they did something that was fraudulent and to avoid stink about it will just credit the charges. Always ask the phone company to do that first. A dispute is a little different because the charge is not directly sent back to the company, it is just placed in a holding tank for the toll dispute area to get more information to get the charges taken care of. If the company does not respond or will not talk to us within 90 days, the phone company cannot do anything else because, at that point, the phone company has paid the charges (again, by law) to the fraud company and now the consumer owes the money to his/her local company. It's wrong, wrong, WRONG but that's how it works. But, if all else fails, (and I strongly suggest it because this company is a nightmare to work with) you can ALWAYS contact your local public service commission. They keep track of that sort of thing and can help you recover any losses/recurring charges. Also, that's the only way that these scumbags will stop cheating people in the future: there need to be more complaints! The public service number is usually in the beginning portion of your phone book, and you can also find it online. Best of luck!