Rocket Communications review: fraudulent charges/slamming 21

I have recently noticed this charge on my bill. First my cable bill has been increasing like crazy, I called Verizon to cancel some service because it was too expensive. They informed me that not only one but two different companies were charging me $15.00 some odd dollars a month. They told me one was Rocket Communications and the other was My Home Office Solutions. I called Rocket Communication and they told me someone named KoKo had signed us up for service. No one in my house is named KoKo... I demanded the service be canceled and wanted a refund! She told me the service was started in 2008 and I was to get a refund of $362.62! I dont know why Verizon would let someone bill on their bill when it has no connection to Verizon! Its all scams...

Yes the email worked - and I received the refund within 2 days - So I am happy with that ! Be polite - but firm in yur email no bad words or threats ..

I work the cancelation line for Rocket Communications. I'm the guy that you want on your side and might have cancelled a few of you. Is this company shady? Certainly yes. Illegal? Unfortunately no. It is something people have to sign up for and fill out a form. Sometimes what happens is someone wants to try it and puts in someone's number, which is why you should always check out who signed you up. You might be surprised.
Some tips:
We can't tell you what the offer was signed up under, mainly because there's far too many to count. And there's so many different companies attached to each.
The 1 to 2 billing cycles depends on when you cancel. We actually send the credit rather swiftly.
Don't go automated please. Either email like Python did, or call me. We can issue you a credit. The automated can't.

I wish you guys luck on the complaint, I'd be out a job, but I don't care for getting screamed at for hours on end over this anyway.

Well I discovered the charge on my Century Link bill. I called Century Link and placed a STOP for third party billing.. I then emailed the Company (Rocket Communications) and told them I cancelled my service that i didn't authorize or approve. My email told them I wanted a complete refund for the entire amount I was billed. I figured I wouldn't hear from them. Within a hour they emailed and said they would refund the entire amount by check. This was on Wednesday. Today -Saturday I received a check for the entire amount. Be nice in your email and tell them you will be making a complaint to the Attorney General's Office (your State), the Federal Trace Commission and the FCC. It seems to work very quick refund.. The secret is:be firm but not pissy..

The number that Verizon gives you to call is wrong I searched google for this companies phone number and it was [protected]. Went through pretty fast and got a hold of customer service they told me it would be a 2 billing cycle and got a confirmation number. They also told me that I signed up for it which is funny because I don't signup for stuff like that. Now I have to call Verizon back to tell them I'm not paying that charge. And a tip yes these guys are scamming but please do not call them up and be all furious about it. Things get done quicker when you are more courteous and all the people you get a hold of are the middle man so cut them some slack. It is their supervisors and higher ups that came up with this little scheme. Hope this helps.

Well, Their system hung up on me. Will try again

Well, I'm the next victim that found this forum. Same deal, the wife looked at the bill and stated "why is the bill more this month than last?" I took a look at the statement and found on page 3 that we had been slammed $12.95 plus fees and taxes. I am currently on hold waiting for "Rocket Communications" to answer their phone. I am so sick of our advances in technology giving more and more thieves the ability to screw with the common customer. I can say as a "middle class citizen" that I have had enough. I can't afford to loose a dime to anyone that has no conscience taking from me! I'll let you know what happens next! JCB

My new phone bill had a surprise for me -- on the last page there was a new category: "Third Party Providers." It was from ESBI for voicemail & E-faxing, provided through RocketCommunication, with a monthly fee of $12.95. I never heard of the outfit, don't need it and didn't order it. I called ESBI and told them so and told them to delete the billing. They gave me a cancel confirmation number and advised me to call Century Link.I told the phone company that I wanted the charge deleted and gave them the confirmation number.In addition to canceling the charge, the Century Link rep told me that they offer a free third-party block so that nothing like this will ever happen again from anyone. I took them up on that. Check your bill and alert your neighbors.

Shaking my head at all of this disgusting behavior. The billing charge was just brought to my attention yesterday evening so I called Verizon today and they put an auto block on my account. They were even generous enough to give me the 800 number to ESBI, who then tried to connect me with Rocket Communication which, by the way, their 800 number is no longer in service, HA!. So I called ESBI again and the lady I spoke with told me that she wouldn't be able to help me unless I gave her dates and times of billings.

I don't know about all of you but, as a consumer, I'm not taking getting cheated anymore. I plan to find all past bills to see how many times i've been charged $12.95 plus tax, then filing a complaint with the FCC, BBB, calling my governor's office, state representative's office and any and everybody else I can in order to get some type of satisfaction and a refund.

I truly believe that we ALL should get together and file a class action suit against Verizon, AT&T, ESBI and Rocket Communication for all of the mess that they have put us through as consumers. This is bogus! Who's with me?

I received my Verizon bill this month with an additional charge of $12.95 This is the exact story that I've been reading in all your complaints. I called Rocket Communications and was told that I must have ordered voicemail and Fax service (NOT) and that they would refund my money, but it will be charged through the next two billing cycles. I immediately cancelled "Auto Pay" on my Verizon account and reported fraud via email. I have yet to talk to a real live person at Verizon regarding this fraudulent charge. I plan to contact the Attorney General's Office, the FCC and anybody else that can help get these people shutdown.

I am going through the same problem. I'm with at&t and just caught the amount of $12.95 on my bill. I can't understand how these theives get away with it. What kind of contract do they (rocket comm.) have with these companies. I 'm about to contact the BBB in hopes of someone checking this illegal act. I was on auto pay but will certainly change that. I will pay my bill minus the $12.95. I was given a confirmation number and was told it would two to three months to refund this illegal charge. I know the FBI checks on white collar crimes and I think this may fit thst discription. RSG

Everyone file a complaint with the FCC and maybe we can get a class action lawsuit going against Verizon to prohibit 3rd party billing and against Rocket for fraud.

This is unbelievable. How do I become someone who gets AT&T and/or Verizon to be such a stooge/fence? They could bill people for me, for 'stuff' that they have no idea they have or don't have. I would love for one of these supposedly reputable companies to blindly bill people, for non-existent services or goods, for me and then cut me a huge check every month after they themselves made a pretty penny on a month's worth of interest.

Verizon made it sound like this was my fault. As a recap, best I can tell, someone is robbing me, Verizon is helping them, but I am the only bad one in the group because I didn't detect that they were scamming me before my auto bill pay cleared.

Shame on you Verizon. Some people will get in bed with anyone if it makes CENTS.

Just found the charge on my home phone bill with AT &T. We've gone paperless with auto payments, so I haven't seen a bill in quite some time, shame on me. We've been getting charged $12.95 since December of '08, that's 16 months = $207.20. Last year I found charges from USBI on our business account and was given a refund on our next bill of almost $300 in charges. After finding a head person's email address given by another complaint filer, I sent a not so nice message stated that USBI WOULD be giving us a full refund or else. I think we got lucky and didn't have to fight for it, but had to address it. I bet it's the same company, ESBI, USBI... what a bunch of SOB's!

Fiona B

We to have been scammed by these company, s through Verizon also. We are writing letters to each member of Verizons Corporate Officers and each member of the board of directors. Ccorporate Officers are Randal S. Milch Executive Vice President, Thomas J. Tauke Executive president-Public Affairs, Francis J Shammo President-Verizon Telecom and Business. Board of directors are, Richars L. Carrion, M Frances Keeth, Robert W. Lane, Sandra O Moose, Joseph Neubauer, Donald T Nicolaisen, Thomas H O'Brien, Clarence Otis Jr, Hugh B Price, Ivan G. Seidenberg (CEO), John W Snow, John R. Stafford. All the Verizon people we sent individual letters and can be reached at, VERIZON COMMUNICATION INC, 140 West Street, 29th Floor, New York, New York 10007. We also sent a letter to FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION, 445 12th Street SW, Washington, DC 20554.

Totally agree with the what 'William K Spence had to say on this...
Thisis our horror story...
Transaction Clearing Charges of 12.95 (total including taxes 13.60) on my Verizon Bill (monthly telephone bill).
Some company has added a $12.95 without my permission to my Verizon phone bill. This has been going on for couple of months until we realized that there is something fishy about this.
When we called Verizon, they gave us the company’s number [protected]. According to Verizon, we have to call this company and fight it out with them, and that Verizon is not responsible for the charges. They will allow companies to charge the customers, unless the customers put a ‘auto billing block’ on their account.
First of all, we never gave express permission to Verizon to allow other companies to charge through them. According the Superintendent of Verizon Customer Service, all customers who have signed up for Verizon internet have given permission (without the customers knowing about this). And that Verizon Online Internet is a different company and the Verizon phone customer service will not be able to help with that.
When we googled 'verizon transaction clearing charges’ or ‘[protected]’, we saw tons of complaints from people about the same charges appearing in their Verizon phone bill (example - /URL removed/). When we brought this up with the Superintendent of Verizon Customer Service, she insisted that they are not responsible and that it is a valid company, otherwise they cannot bill you. And that we or someone else has given them permission to bill!
It is very frustrating that Verizon is allowing this to happen to so many customers, and they are of absolutely no help when we call them.
We have now put a block on further charges being levied to our account from third parties.
But how can this company continue to cheat people? Why is Verizon not taking any action despite that many complaints have been logged even on their own web forum. Are they that deaf or cold? There must be thousands of customers who are getting charged and are not aware of this because they do not study their bill. What about the helpless elderly people who have no energy to fight with Verizon or these unethical third party companies.
On top of this, the Verizon representative was claiming proudly that they have provided ‘auto billing block’ for FREE! How generous of them!
If Verizon is a responsible company, why aren’t they launching an investigation on this? Why are they turning a deaf ear on this? Probably they get a cut in this? We are very suspicious since the Verizon customer service people were defending this company and their charges….
Will this practice ever end? Will anyone not hold any of these companies accountable? Will customers continue to get duped until they realize they are being charged this? How do we get that money back? What will these companies come up with next to dupe the customers? Is there no end to these unethical practices?

Scam: Rocket Communications and their Verizon connection:
For some reason, Verizon has allowed an outfit called Rocket Communications to add miscellaneous charges from unknown companies to their Verizon bill.
A specific example:
Strategy 1: "Make it complex; bury it; split it up; complicate the charge."
Upon reviewing my Verizon account bill, I noticed a charge for $13.89 from someone (or some thing) called ESBI. As I looked closer, I noticed that the ESBI charge of $13.89 was the continuation of a charge of $12.95 from Rocket Communications – plus state and city sales taxes (I wonder if a scam is taxable?).
Having never heard of either of these companies and knowing that I hadn't signed up for any of their services, I called the number given in the upper right hand corner for questions re: ESBI [protected]).

Strategy 2: "Make it difficult to get any information."
After going through a seemingly endless list of "push ‘n’ for this question" prompts, I was eventually transferred to a representative and put on hold for a few minutes. The lady was pleasant and told me that the charge resulted from an advertisement on GOOGLE. Someone named "Huffington" had requested a product or service of some sort from the ad, giving my telephone number as his or her telephone number (Verizon then included the charge on the bill they sent me ).

Strategy 3: "Use an Unknown Company to send a bill from an unknown charger to Verizon.”
Scary! Sounds like they've figured a way to charge things to me just by having my telephone number. This is getting scarier by the minute.
I finally find that Rocket Communications is the billing agent for the company who charged me $13.89 (I was not told who the company was -- only that it was from a Google advertisement).

Strategy 4: “Bury the bogus charge deep inside the bill.”
For my convenience, Verizon includes the bogus charge in total on page 4 of the bill (many people don’t go through a bill – takes too much time).
When asked if I wanted to cancel the charge, I replied that not only did I want to cancel the charge, but I did not want to be connected with either the ESBI or Rocket Communications service. Planned silence and no response. I’m given a confirmation number and told that the charge would be cancelled.

Strategy 5: “Train representatives to handle customer with care. Don’t upset them. Make it sound like an honest mistake. Don’t dwell on it.”
The representative had obviously been trained to deal with this problem and gave me a confirmation number to "confirm" the cancellation, telling me that it might take two billing cycles to remove the charge.
Fact: In two months most people will forget about the charge. The amount is small enough to be an irritant but not large enough to burn up a week’s worth of effort to get it cancelled.

What I have to do:
I can’t pay the bogus charge on my Verizon bill. I didn’t sign up for it and I know that the charge is simply a scam ... aided by Verizon, who has approximately 83, 700, 000 customers. Once the money is gone, It’s highly unlikely that it will get refunded. Think of “mail-in rebates.” You might be able to get one back, but they’ll outlast you.

QUESTION: “WHY WOULD Verizon or Rocket Communications DO THIS?” Check the numbers below. You might want to get into this game too!
If only 10% of Verizon’s customers get scammed by this bogus charge of $13.89, you can see that's it's a VERY, VERY profitable business.
If 10% of Verizon's customers pay the charges, Rocket Communications will be raking in about $116, 259, 300.00 per month ... at that rate, it amounts to $1, 395, 111, 600.00 per year --nearly $1.4 billion folks! It wouldn't take long to approach the Barney Madoff numbers ... especially if you get the participation numbers up.
Not bad for doing something that Verizon customers did not ask for and get nothing from.
And . . . Verizon can legitimately say that they’re just the billing agent – even Rocket Communications says that. Verizon might be properly accused of being the "enabling" agent.
If you question the 10% number, question it on the low side. It’s more likely to be low than high. Pick any number, they all result in enormous profits.

My disappointment:
Frankly, I'm very disappointed that Verizon would allow a Company like Rocket Communications to attach a charge to their bill that is not related to Verizon's services.
For me, the practice outlined above brings up ethical issues. It sure doesn’t pass the smell test!
In my opinion, the practice should be challenged in court. We've got enough greed in this country now. This practice is akin the thievery.
One has to wonder WHY Verizon would allow this?
If you develop a causal chain for this practice you can only come to one conclusion:
Either Verizon, or someone employed by Verizon, is profiting from the Rocket Communications connection.

Customers sign up with Verizon to get communications services --not to have Verizon include charges from third parties. It makes no sense for the customer.

William K. Spence

this company also charged bill to verizon account. i never authorized any charges and i have don know any thing about this company. i filed a complaint with the state corporation commisson with the state
that i live in. i called verzizon 2 times and rocket communication 2 time. because i was not issued a credit

I just received my phone bill with AT&T as my phone carrier. I concur with the above statement that AT&T need to change their practice on allowing random phone services to charge customer's phone bills. This is clearly a fraudulence issue and I will report them to AT&T and other means.

I've called the company's customer service and was also given a confirmation number in which the amount was to be refunded within 2 billing cycles.

I have exactly the same problem, although with AT&T as the carrier. This company can't be having that many mistakes. I think it's deliberate. I don't plan to pay this amount to AT&T. If they're that free with my account, they need to change their practices.

I have checked my Verizon bill and found that this company slammed me also for a service I never ordered or got and put the charge on my bill. I have called the given toll-free number and was told that the charge was made in error and got a promise that it will be credited "within 2 billing cycles" and also a confirmation number. We will see if they are going to follow through.