<p>About five months ago I became aware that several businesses had, with my consent, been charging me on a monthly basis for things I hadn’t really paid much attention to. There was the monthly “monitoring” charge from <a href=“http://www.freecreditreport.com--which%5B/url%5D”>www.freecreditreport.com–which</a> I’d consented to when I got the “free” report and then forgot to cancel. (By the way, there are TWO monthly charges you agree to when you get that free report–make sure you cancel both!) There was a bill from DirectTV that was on my husband’s credit card that was buried in one of those long lists of initials–but we’d cancelled DirectTV a while back and shouldn’t have been charged.</p>
<p>Recently I cancelled my Verizon landline… and this month I have bill from them that includes a NEW monthly charge for $9.99 for “verizon dialup service”. Huh? I don’t think I agreed to that! Of course they’re not open on weekends to cancel it today. The charge is buried in the credits for services I cancelled, too, so it’s not obvious.</p>
<p>VERY annoying! I’m coming to believe that these companies hire someone to figure out ways to charge me regularly without me noticing. What would the job description for that be? Billing psychologist?</p>
<p>Yes, I noticed my Verizon bill creeping up and finally went over the charges carefully. They were allowing “third party vendors” to charge our account for things that we had never asked for! (Like ringtones). I had all third party vendors blocked, but they did not give us a refund. Rip off!</p>
<p>Just wanted to mention that you can get a free credit report at annualcreditreport.com without having to sign up for anything (although they will try). You do have to be vigilant on CC and phone bills especially.</p>
<p>I don’t look at the cell phone bill unless the amount charged is quite far off of the amount I am expecting. Found one of those annoying ringtone charges that way.</p>
<p>The latest sneaky charge I’ve encountered is that my H ordered a year-long subscription to Architectural Digest for me (which I didn’t want at all as it just depresses me, but that’s a different subject). Near the end of the year I got a note from them saying that I had already given them permission to automatically renew it every year so they would go ahead and do that. I called to say I did NOT give them that permission. They said “Oh yes you did. Online if you don’t change the default “yes” to a “no” then you’ve signed up.” I told them I did not want to renew and that even if I did want to, I wouldn’t because they were sneaky and underhanded. This is one to watch out for.</p>
<p>Here is one. Credit card companies can have a payment due date 2-3 days prior to the close date for that cycle. You can make a payment, not make the deadline, be charged a late fee, but instead of the payment showing up on the next card statement, and at least keeping you from being late that month, the same cycle can happen all over again.</p>
<p>I have my few credit cards set up on auto pay on my Billpay service with my bank. With my gas card, I just have it set to pay at or above the usual budget for gas automatically every month. The gas card changed its deadline, and even though I pay a payment before the end of the statement, I just found out it is one day “late”, but still applied. So when it is one day late the next month, THEY CAN STILL CHARGE ME A LATE FEE because the last late payment still came in before the end of the statement date. That is a rip-off. That 2-3 day period each month probably sees plenty of payments arrive, but they are “late” and it happens all over again the next month.</p>
<p>puzzled: I am currently fighting with Vault.com regarding the same sort of scam. I tried to cancel and they said NO, you signed up for automatic renewal and that’s that. Disputed the charge with my credit card. Didn’t work, even though the company has a unsatisfactory record with the BBB (LOTS of complaints). </p>
<p>So, I filed a complaint with the attorney general’s office in NY. They are investigating. I heard they recently settled with an online anti-virus company for similar practices. Big refund money for those who were scammed. Plus stipulations that they must notify before renewing and give 60 days to opt out. I forwarded it to Vault. I’m hoping this stupid thing finally goes away. I refuse to pay! </p>
<p>Yes, watch your credit card and bills. Also, I found a $5 per month insurance charge on my verizon bill that I never ordered.</p>
<p>Similar (but not the same), I actually canceled my (very long standing) support to our PBS affiliate because I received a notice in August saying my annual membership pledge was expiring and here’s an envelope, etc. to keep current. At the time it seemed like I had just paid them (say within 3 months), so I went through my records and sure enough, my annual pledge was not due for another 8 months! </p>
<p>It’s like this…I don’t like getting scammed no matter who its from! I simply threw the notice and every one after that away. Dirty business is dirty business, I wash my hands of any company with dirty business tactics and let them know it.</p>
<p>Verizon did a very sneaky thing to my mom recently. She forgot the password to her voicemail. So she called to get it reset and while she was on the phone, the representative notified her that her 2-year-contract was about to expire (had <3 months left). The representative said “Your 2-year contract is about to expire. Are you interested in renewing?”. Innocent enough, right? My mom said “I probably will.” The representative took the liberty to mark down “yes” and my mom was hooked in for another 2 years.</p>
<p>Needless to say, she was so livid she payed the $200 fee to get out of the contract and switched providers.</p>
<p>CIA–if I were your mom, I’d go to the AG and/or BBB to get Verizon to give back the $200. That’s just so WRONG! I hate being scammed and will complain & sometimes just getting a strongly worded letter of an attorney’s letterhead will do wonders at getting things righted quickly. If you know any attorneys & are willing to do the work & write up the draft & just have them put it on their letterhead, it can be pretty effective.</p>
<p>CIA - Verizon records every conversation they have. Call, ask for a supervisor, and have the recorded message played back with you both on the phone. Confirm what was said and if indeed your mom said, “I probably” will, get the $200 back. Don’t take no for an answer.</p>
<p>Another Verizon complaint. We have unlimited texting and with that apparently comes the ability to connect to the internet. When we signed up for unlimited texting, no one gave us the “option” on the internet, just said it was part of the package. I thought, ok, won’t probably use it, but in case of emergency will be nice to have. I understood that the internet would be charged at $1.99 per megabite (I think) of downloaded info. The rep could not tell me how “much” a megabite would be - checking email once? Checking weather channel a few times? No indication. Again, I wasn’t worried too much cause I know I wouldn’t use it.</p>
<p>I noticed the last couple of months 3 out of 4 of our lines had a $1.99 charge on them. Called to check. Turns out my husband, D and I all had hit the one “click” that is the connect to the internet button - just one of the buttons to the side of the “ok” button we use all the time. We ALL had disconnected quickly - in fact, Verizon could TELL ME that they showed connection for .018 seconds. All the hits were less than a second - not enough time for a page to even consider loading! Obviously a fingering error! But NONE THE LESS THEY CHARGE YOU THE $1.99!!! </p>
<p>I figure they are making LOADS of $$$ off of this charge! And I clearly told the operator what a sour note that left with me re: their customer service. She did offer to put a “block” on our internet - wish they would have offered us that in the first place - oh yeah! if they did they couldn’t make their few additonal bucks off of us!</p>
<p>I scour each month’s phone bill - we have found numerous charges to disbute.</p>
<p>This is turning out to be an interesting thread. Doesn’t it seem like there are many many folks out there trying to nick you for a few bucks without your knowledge?</p>
<p>Actually, I thought this was one of the oldest scams in the book, but recognized as a scam, ie ILLEGAL. You simply send bills for $49.99 to several hundred (or thousand) businesses for some kind of fictitious service that you may or may not have provided. If 10% of the businesses just pay your bill, you are doing pretty well, right? However, this is recognized as illegal and you can get prosecuted for it. Yet these businesses seem to be doing very well by adding illegitimate charges to your bill.</p>
<p>My favorite was, of all things, CONSUMER REPORTS! I signed up for one month of online access for $5.99. I am very very sure I only signed up for one month, yet I continued to be billed monthly and didn’t notice until 3 months later. Why would I, a rational human being, sign up for consumer reports online at $5.99 per month, or $72 per year?? Imagine being scammed by Consumer Reports! How ironic.</p>
<p>I’ve seen this for decades - it’s nothing new. My wife nearly got scammed by our credit card provider recently. </p>
<p>It was a telemarketer with a really bad accent - she thought it was from the Philippines and the person asked permission to read her some marketing stuff. It was in broken english and painful to listen to. Then she asked for permission to read something else. I told my wife that it was a scam. My wife told her that she isn’t giving out her permission for anything. The idea is that you keep giving permission and then they slip in credit insurance for $9.99/month.</p>
<p>ICK! We’ve stopped answering our landline most of the time these days and basically only use it for outgoing faxes. We may just turn it off soon as it is primarily used by telemarketers even tho we’re on the “DO NO CALL” list, that doesn’t seem to stop all the “charities” and “religous” groups that are exempt or at least refuse to honor that “NO means NO.”</p>
<p>If we can figure out how to get outgoing faxes in a different manner, we may just give up our landline altogether. I know I’ve seen an adapter that allows you to plug your cell phone in to use a landline phone with it somehow but can’t remember the specifics (it was years ago).</p>
<p>Also really hate all those “FREE gift,” with postage & shipping of $25 (or more) type offers that keep coming with the bills & credit card statements. YUCK! Dad THINKS he may have purchased one or two of those things but we called the CC & complained because mom hadn’t & we were sure they were fraudulent since the quality & value were so poor when the items were received compared to the “postage & handling fees.” I also hate those magazines & any service that automatically bills to your CC & you of course “can cancel,” but it somehow takes forever for the cancellation to be effective. We just never bother with it and refuse these wonderful “free” offers & gifts.</p>
<p>Unwanted recurring credit card charges can be avoided by using “one time” credit card numbers like the Shopsafe feature available through Bank of America. Shopsafe allows you to generate a temporary, unique credit card number with a user defined expiration date and credit limit. I use shopsafe numbers for most online transactions. If a merchant tries to piggyback or automatically renew a charge, the transaction is denied.</p>
<p>Verizon’s internet and text charges are best managed from their online site. One block web access on a phone by phone basis. Since WAP browsing is essentially useless, most users will block web access for all but smartphones.</p>
<p>There are a number of services that let you send/receive faxes online (for a fee, of course). I can’t vouch for any since I haven’t used them, but you can investigate.</p>
<p>Can you tell me more about the BofAm Shopesafe one-time credit cards? I’ve heard of them but haven’t known anyone that had used them. I’m curious about your experience, expense/hassle/charges, any problems, pros & cons, etc.</p>