ILD review: Cramming

On 06 Jun 2009, Foneright, Inc, through IDL Teleservices, Inc. billed my home phone for voice mail services which were not solicited by any Internet pop-up, post card entry for a dream vacation, telemarketing call or any other means that you can think of. According to AT&T, "They are required to accept these charges for billing to my account with no other identification but date, phone number and amount of the charge". It goes right into the billing sections of the bills and is not stored or printed by AT&T in any databases. Like ILD Teleservices, Inc., AT&T is 'acting as a billing service only". Now I have to call AT&T back after the credit is issued by ILD Teleservices to get them to put a block one my account.

I did call ILD Teleservices and voiced my complaint, received a confirmation number (132-38) and requested a block be placed on any activity by Foneright and my AT&T account after the credit is issued. ILD, like AT&T, also gave me that 'out-of-my-control' spiel. We are only the clearing house. They did, however give me the information that they collected from Foneright, which contained my address and phone number (which could be found in many places on the Internet), but an INCORRECT mother's maiden name. This prompted me to see what info AT&T had on file for me . AT&T does not collect the mother's maiden name of the account holder, nor is this a choice of any of the available security questions. AT&T only accepts the minimum amount of information required by government regulations.

Melanie, the AT&T supervisor, agreed with me that these cramming charges only serve to anger their clients, waste everyone's time, may result in problematic charges incorrectly posted to the credit bureaus and may result in peopling switching to other carriers.