Today’s Lesson: Be Sure To Read Your Statements
Posted Under: Uncategorized
My local telephone service is provided by AT&T and I have signed up to recieve my statements online. I also have signed up to have my payment made automatically each month. Each month I get an email telling me that my bill is ready to view and the amount of the bill. It’s always about $37.00 and I rarely go to the site to look at it.
This month the email said the total was $60.54, which caught my eye. My first thought was that my automatic payment the previous month was not credited for some reason, so I clicked the link to go to their site.
Upon reading my bill I saw that I was being charged $14.95 and the explanation said it was for “MYIPRODUCTS IMAIL VOICEMAIL MTHLY FEE”.
I also had an $8.43 charge for “YOURBILLINGSOLUTIONS,INC-1X SETUP FEE”.
There was also mentions of a company called OAN Service, Inc. I’m not sure who they are or what they offer, but I know I did not sign up for any new phone services. When I called AT&T, the representative on the phone told me I probably signed up for something online that said in the fine print that I was signing up for this. I can’t think of anything I signed up for lately so I have no idea how this happened.
The representative on the phone removed all the charges from my bill, but it still makes me mad. How many people are also getting charged and not noticing it on their bills? I bet some people will pay for months and not realize it.
I googled the name “OAN Services” and quickly noticed that most of the results returned included the words “ripoff”, “fraud”, and “scam”.
I’m just glad I noticed it when I did.
Reader Comments
Reminds me of a time when I used to subscribe to “The Sporting News” magazine. My subscription was about to run out and I got a call that said they were from The Sporting News and they offered me a good deal if I renewed. I accepted and gave them my credit card number. A few days later I got a call asking me to renew my subscription. I thought it was the same company calling me so I said “I told the man who called a couple days ago that I did want to renew.” They said “Oh you do, let me get your information again.” When I got my credit card bill I saw that I was charged for the subscription twice by different companies!