Complaint Review: ESBI - Integretel - Nationwide

It is free to block third party companies from billing you. The only block that costs money is the "toll restriction" block, which blocks all long distance calls made from your phone, both direct dial and access numbers like 10-10-220.

I have a couple comments to make in response to your report. First of all, the comment you made that said, "It ticks me off that Qwest lets them piggy back on their customer's phone bill and then we have to pay to have the service blocked. GO FIGURE! If Qwest is aware of their illegitimate business practices, shame on them for providing it anyway" is not accurate in the least bit. Why would we want to allow ANYONE to put their charges on our bill, especially charges that are not legit? The company does not want billing calls. We get thousands of calls a day from customers thinking their bill is wrong or mischarged or upset that we shut off their service because they didn't pay their bill. Go figure! With that in mind, do you really think we want to worry about trying to explain another company's charges. No! It does not matter what phone company you have, the FCC allows these other companies to put their charges on the phone company's bill. We can not stop it. So we HAVE TO offer a 3rd party block, just like all other companies do. We have to do certain things a certain way to avoid fines. So for all the people out there who think that Qwest is doing this to them and allowing these scams to happen, think of it this way; if you buy a new car at the Dodge dealership and the next day it doesn't want to start, are you going to call McDonalds and complain about it and accuse them of doing this to you? No! So stop accusing Qwest of scamming you and allowing this to happen. We get lots of customers calling in threatening to cancel their service and go elsewhere because of unauthorized 3rd party charges. We hate to see you go, but it won't stop the charges. If they want to charge you, they wil charge you. Switching your local service provider will not stop the charges. What really needs to happen is customers actually need to look at their bills because I am sure there are thousands of customers who get these charges and just pay the bill without even looking at it. Then they need to report it to the attorney general and the FCC so they can stop these companies that are running these scams. Now, as far as whether or not it is in fact a scam that Integretel is pulling, I honestly do not know for a fact, BUT if I had to say one way or another I would say that at least 75% of these charges from Integretel I see on customer's bills are not legit and almost everytime a customer calls ESBI or Integretel, they agree to reverse the charges immediately. So in short, NO, Qwest is not in on it and does not allow it to happen. We would rather let the other companies deal with their own billing issues and upset customers! So now you know THE REST OF THE STORY!!!

I contacted both companies. To my surprise, I was able to get some information about the accounts I supposedly signed up for. I am a foster parent and one of the children that had lived with me used my identity to sign up for those services. She is a real jewel, that's why I opted for her to leave after stealing some of my money and jewelry. To make a long story short, since she was a minor and not able to sign up for anything... I got off the hook. The customer service reps were cordial and professional. So, you take it from here.

I have never encountered any charges to BLOCK 3rd party calls or billing. ESBI is the main problem, but your local company who receives some part of the action, can also be part of the problem not solution. COMPLAIN COMPLAIN COMPLAIN. Phone companies are highgly regulated, so file with the ftc.gov and other state agencies. STOP THESE vultures. Block any and ALL services you would never use, such as collect calls, etc. There are always new scams that use these features and blocking is the best, even if it costs alittle. Better than bills for stuff you never charged.