<p>Was just paying bills online and noticed our home phone bill was around an extra $20 more than usual, so I looked up the details, and there’s a new charge for $19.95 from Nationwide Assist, LLC. Sounds like some sort of eFax monthly service charge. We’ve never used eFax (and have never ordered it), as we have our own fax machine that runs through our land line. </p>
<p>My concern is that the billing cycle began April 1st, and we weren’t even in town then (or the previous days leading up to it). We had a housesitter/petsitter here until that evening, then D2 arrived home around midnight. </p>
<p>Yes, we had this additional bill on our two home lines. Called AT&T to inquire and they took it off. I didn’t really understand their explanation - but it sounded like a company out there can bill for this through At&T and AT&T is required to pass it along to the customer without verifying if it is legitimate or not. As I said, I didn’t really understand the explanation - but I was glad that they took it off!</p>
<p>my bill went up 70$ this month with many things we didn’t order. (husband doesn’t down load games) called them up and they took it off but this was our 2nd month that we had to call. It was our ATT cell phone lines. watch your bills people!!!</p>
<p>This happened on our office phone. They apparently must pass through these bogus charges onto the bill when they receive them on unless you call and specifically tell them not to allow third party charges to be added to your bill.</p>
<p>thanks everyone; you were basically right on, but I still don’t know how the charges ended up on our bill.</p>
<p>When I called the number, they said the monthly service had been ordered online from the URL giftcardchallenge.com. Funny thing was, they told me it had been ordered by D1, who was also traveling that day with H, on their way to meet me. They had her name on the record, along with the URL. I don’t think our housesitter could have done it from here because she’s never even met our daughter (nor would she have any reason to know she exists) who lives in Boston.</p>
<p>Anyway, they are going to credit me the charges and additional charges that have already been made as of 4/30.</p>
<p>When I told D1 about it (I had to call her to make sure she had not authorized anything like this), she asked how I noticed it. I told her that our monthly land line bill consistently is within a $2-3 window each month, and this one was substantially more, which led me to check it.</p>
<p>So yea, always check your bills if they’re off a bit from what you’re used to.</p>
<p>Ick! I have NO long distance provider on my landline any more because I got tired of the hassles. My local phone bill is always fine now & doesn’t had odd extra charges. I do scrutinize my bills because there are some odd things that can be added.</p>