Someone managed to con Verizon into adding a 5th line to my phone plan and get themselves sent a brand new iPhone 8. Got the notification via email and text today on the bill amount, and it was $100 too high. Hopped onto chat right away, and was told to “wait an hour and the bill would be online”. Went back a few hours later – still no bill to review, but the customer service rep (who messages suspiciously like a bot to start with) just said someone purchased the phone at a store in Basking Ridge, NJ and delivered to Acworth, GA. Verizon is opening a fraud investigation and says they will refund all charges once it is investigated. I’m telling them not to charge my card for anything above the normal amount (don’t want to deal with charges and refunds). They are waffling… 8-|
Seems like if someone actually cared about this type of crime, they’d call the police as soon as someone tried to pick up the phone! Sadly, I think they won’t pay much attention to this kind of fraud.
I hope you did suspend service on that line!
I never have auto pay on my bills because I always want to be able to review a bill before I pay. It is easy for them to take money out, but much harder to get money back.
^Ditto.
Oddly, Basking Ridge, NJ is where the corporate HQ of AT&T used to be before they were merged and moved to Atlanta.
@busdriver11 That’s the shame. I had a neighbor once who was the victim of Identity Theft before that was a well known crime. No authorities cared. Because of his own professional background, he discovered the culprit on his own which was someone at a check processing center. He still had trouble getting anyone to prosecute. Frustrating.
The Oct bill doesn’t get charged to the credit card until Nov 11. They claim they will reverse the charges, etc on that Oct bill by 3-5 working days from now. Someone is supposed to call me in that window. I’ll be calling them if I don’t hear.
That AT&T location in Basking Ridge is now the Verizon headquarters. I wonder if it is an inside job - an employee fraud scheme?
That would be pretty bold.
Employee fraud schemes are common. Have a CPA marry a former retail manager and have D in Fraud Accounting currently. Eek, we pretty much view a lot of people as capable of circumventing internal controls and committing fraud and theft.
AT&T has offices in Atlanta, wit the merger years ago with Bell South/ SBC, but IIRC, AT&T’s corporate headquarters is in Dallas.
Do you have a PIN on your phone line?
Not that I remember. I have a password on my online account, of course. But it doesn’t seem like they did this via my online account.
ATT is very good about working with you on this kind of thing. My late father had fraudulent charges show up on his bill. Since his phone patterns were always just calls to me, and NOT the city the thief called, ATT reimbursed him.
Verizon indicated that they expect to reverse all the charges, so I assume it will be ok.
We found another reason to carefully check you bill. We moved to a different state but didn’t change our cell phone numbers. Sprint had this weird assumption that we lived in both states, and they charged us sales tax in both states until I caught it. They ended up refunding about $150! Telecomm taxes can add up since local jurisdictions often hide temporary taxes there. It’s work checking occasionally.
Ugh. I moved two years ago, and telecom taxes are much higher in my new state. I thought they’d added another line or something! Alas, no double taxation or mistake on the bill. Just much higher telecom taxes in the new state.
this article might be helpful.
Helpful & depressing. 