Long Distance phone companies slamming

[wookin]

It's been awhile since I heard about this and now I am a victim. I received my AT&T phone bill with an additional charge of $16.xx for long distance service. I already pay for unlimited long distance with AT&T. Why would I want to pay 3 times as much from another company? Well, I disputed this with AT&T and asked how another company can put an unauthorized charge on my bill. I was told that it is slamming and that AT&T can't stop it. WTH, why can't they? OK, whatever, they can't, but I can. I immediately signed up with Vonage. I figure $24.99/mo is better than $43.54 anyway.

Now it seems that someone out there wants to be me. My paypal account was comprimised. Someone tried to access it and paypal stopped it. Thank you paypal.

This morning I checked my American Express bill and there was a charge of $173.xx for some domain name company. This came from the UK somewhere. AmEx was wonderful and canceled my card and is disputing the charge. All this takes time out of my busy schedule of being a Grammy.

So the morale of this story is, check every line item on your bills when you receive them or even online if you can. The AmEx charge was done this Sunday 8/9 so I caught that one early. I'm not looking for a bunch of posts about I'm sorry this happened to you, I just want others to be aware that, YES it CAN and probably WILL happen to you sometime in your lifetime. Stay on top of all of your expenses and check everything.

[NIGHTB1022]

It's been awhile since I heard about this and now I am a victim. I received my AT&T phone bill with an additional charge of $16.xx for long distance service. I already pay for unlimited long distance with AT&T. Why would I want to pay 3 times as much from another company? Well, I disputed this with AT&T and asked how another company can put an unauthorized charge on my bill. I was told that it is slamming and that AT&T can't stop it. WTH, why can't they? OK, whatever, they can't, but I can. I immediately signed up with Vonage. I figure $24.99/mo is better than $43.54 anyway.

Now it seems that someone out there wants to be me. My paypal account was comprimised. Someone tried to access it and paypal stopped it. Thank you paypal.

This morning I checked my American Express bill and there was a charge of $173.xx for some domain name company. This came from the UK somewhere. AmEx was wonderful and canceled my card and is disputing the charge. All this takes time out of my busy schedule of being a Grammy.

So the morale of this story is, check every line item on your bills when you receive them or even online if you can. The AmEx charge was done this Sunday 8/9 so I caught that one early. I'm not looking for a bunch of posts about I'm sorry this happened to you, I just want others to be aware that, YES it CAN and probably WILL happen to you sometime in your lifetime. Stay on top of all of your expenses and check everything.

Oh yes they can stop it, I just caught this the other day on our AT & T bill at work, some off the wall company called UTBI or something like that and I called the phone company & they put a block on it and removed the charges.

As far as your other issues, it sounds to me like someone put keylogging on your computer and is getting your info that way. That has happened to me before, they got into my ebay account and changed the pasword on me. You need to run a cleaner on your computer to get rid of it.

[wookin]

Yep USBI is like a clearing house for these slammers. They're are about as useless as tits on a bore. AT&T is disputing the charge but said they can't prevent it from happening again. I know they can, they just choose not to, so I choose not to keep them. I PM'd you regarding the cleaner and appreciate any info you have on how to prevent them from getting more. I plan to run a credit report today too. Thanks.

[meggers]

Bumping for others to see. This is pretty scary.

[VANILLAGRRL]

I just experienced thesame thing with my ATT bill. I had one charge for $8 from MYTELESERVICES and $24 rom KOOL TELECOM. I immediately had the the charges removed from my bill and they sent me a form to fill out to block the slamming. I'm not sure why they would tell you there was nothing they could do.

[warcraftbaby]

I just experienced thesame thing with my ATT bill. I had one charge for $8 from MYTELESERVICES and $24 rom KOOL TELECOM. I immediately had the the charges removed from my bill and they sent me a form to fill out to block the slamming. I'm not sure why they would tell you there was nothing they could do.

I don't understand what this slamming is. It sounds almost like your phone bill is a credit card and anyone with the account info can charge to it? I didn't think that's how phone bills worked. I check every single item on my bill every month, so far nothing like that has happened, outside the outrageous amount we're charged for long distance.

OP, to get rid of keyloggers, I don't trust just running an antivirus, or even various antiviruses to clear everything. I wiped my entire hard drive. I have done this two or three times this year, so it's not the hardest process in the world, just time consuming. And o boy not much can live thru that Plus I kinda like wiping my hard drive, my comp runs really fast for the 20 mins before I reinstall WoW

[Kristen.C]

For people who are going through this, there is an FCC website set up that explains everything including your rights as a consumer and how to file a complaint.

FCC - Slamming

[Sculpture Widow]

This has happened to us several times. I end up having the AT&T cs folk calling the 3rd party with me ( all 3 on phone together).
It's ridiculous.
Once on the phone with AT&T, the cs person told me it was her 6th call of the day, helping customers with unknown 3rd party charges.

[extechy]

Are you sure you don't have a virus or spyware on your computer?

That's an awful lot of funny business for one person, especially within a short period of time.

[extechy]

I should have kept reading...

I bet it's was your computer.