Friends,
I have been trying for several months to get "Premium Service (Non-Telcom)"
charges removed from a family members portion of the families Cell Phone
Bill. These charges appear once or twice a month for $6 to $9 apiece. After
calling our cell provider several times, I finally found out that these were
ring tones that were being "made available" for down load. Only once was a
new ring tone down loaded from this service. The cell phone providers cannot
stop these kinds of charges! Apparently this has to do with equal access,
etc. so this is very hard to get rid of. The cell provider does provide the
800 # for the Premium Service provider and by law the Premium Service
provider is required to stop the on going billing for services that are no
longer wanted or needed and credit past charges. However and here is the
rub, the 800 # number in this case was answered by computer and I was
referred to a different 800 #, where I get a computerized recording asking
me to leave the mobile number they have been billing and another phone
number that they can call me when they get to our call "in the order
received". Which is probably a long time out!
The customer support person I last talked to said that this was a huge
problem with all cell providers. It is protected by the law, and consumer
frustration! The only real way out is to not purchase this kind of stuff on
your cell phone! The only way this can really be changed is to change the
law so that the cell provider can back charge the Premium Provider and also
block this kind of services from being billed to your cell phone on request!
Neither of these options are possible under current laws and regulations!
We of course can just not pay that portion of the bill. However, I am sure
that the cell provider would quickly shut our service off with an
appropriate black mark on our credit record. Plus we wouldn't have our cell
phones!!
Regards,
Jim
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