Thursday, August 6, 2009

New Scam in Town...beware

So here's what's going on...
We have had automatic debit on our AT&T, QWEST, and Farmer's insurance, among others for our monthly bills...and this summer it has hit a snag! A huge snag!
Instead of our monthly set payments coming out of our checking account, our bills have doubled, even tripled!--coming out of our account before we knew it and wreaking havoc with our account!
Third party companies are tagging onto our accounts without our knowledge or consent and taking as much as $224.00 (from our AT&T Wireless) from our bank account! When I call AT&T, Qwest, etc., they are absolutely no help...our complaint is filed and sent to a Review Board, then adjustments are made 10-21 Business days LATER!
You have to ask for the contact info for the 3rd Party companies and CANCEL the account yourself and set up a block on your phone account AND remove auto-debit from your Bill Pay on your bank account.
Just today, a company called "Cheap to Dial Telephone" hitched to my Qwest bill and added $16.18 cents on it--ugh! Qwest gal says there are no limits to how many 3rd party companies can tag onto your bill or how much they can bill you for! NO LIMITS!! Ridiculous!
Farmers Insurance billed us last month on an account that has been cancelled since January! They just went in and took over $200.
So I've removed all auto-debits from our banking. It's just not safe or conveniant.
I know of a few people that have had this experience...anyone else?
Oh, and one of the companies ( Cheap to Dial) is in a town that I recognize as an unusual town Washington, MO>--from my little FEEDJ-IT thingy over there. But I'm not sure how they could've tapped into my personal information. Another reason to keep personal info off the internet.

What a world.

4 comments:

  1. Good post Momza !

    Our son had this problem with his insurance company for 6 months after he had canceled with them. They just kept taking his money out of his account ! He was on the phone for days getting it squared away and it took 3 months to get all his money back...a good lesson learned for us for sure !

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  2. Sorry you've had this absolutely crazy experience, but it just serves to validate me in what my kids think is my complete paranoia over automatic debits from my account. It's more work, but I pay my bills by check every month so that I can keep control of what goes in and out of my bank account and when.

    Sometimes I've thought of listening to my kids and changing my ways, but you have just solidified my resolve.

    Thanks for the tip!

    =)

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  3. YIKES that kind of stuff just scares the heck out of me!!!!! I hope you get it all taken care of and never have to experience that ever again...it sucks when things that are suppose to make life a bit simpler for us end up making it a total wreck!!!

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  4. WOW! I can't believe that! I actually do all of mine either by check, or I go to THEIR websites to make my payments; I'm too much of a control freak to do it otherwise.

    I hope it gets all straightened out for you.

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