ATTENTION: Watch out for extra fees on your cell and home telephone bills

Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 01:09

I got our home telephone bill in the mail today and I was shocked when I looked at it.  We had just recently disconnected all extras on the phone bill (it used to run $45/month, and now it should run about $18/month) but our phone bill was still high.  So I looked further and found out there was a back page, that looked different than the rest, and it was a charge of $12.95 for some kind of voice mail fee service.

So I promptly called AT&T and after looking at the bill, the gentleman said this is from a Third Party Provider.  I said I have never heard of this company and I don't need it because we have an answering machine.  So..........he put a block on our service and a note saying we do not want ANY third party services, so if this should ever happen again, it will be blocked and not charged on our bill!!!  I suggest everyone do this!  Then he told me I need to call the company (the 3rd party) and ask them to refund the money (which will go to AT&T and then be credited on my next bill).  So I did.

And the guy at the other company was very nice about it.  He said I had signed up for this on the internet on such and such website.  I said well, I doubt it because I have never heard of this company, the website, and I was unaware of the charges on my bill, and wanted to be refunded.  So he said, ok ma'am, wait one second.  Within a minute or two, he said he had refunded the money for THREE months of this service!!!  I said what?? He said, yes ma'am, you have had this service for three months, so I am refunding all three months. 

Well, I didn't even know I had paid this amount for 3 month (plus taxes on top of that, which will also be refunded), because up until this month, I had been paying for our house bill, online.  I am glad I am getting paper bills from now on.

The other problem I had with third party billing, was with our Alltel cell phones.  Upon paying our bill for this month, I notices THREE different charges for downloadable games, on my cell phone number.  So I called Alltel, and asked them to refund them.  One charge was for 3.49, another for 14.95, and another.  Anyway, it added up to almost $28.00 in games!  The cell phone gal worked with me and said she would refund these on NEXT month's bill.  So, I had to pay for them this time, and I took notes of all that was going on, and hopefully they will follow through with this, and credit our next month's bill.

I wrote this, because we are tight with money, as many of you are, and I am realizing now, that Third Party people try to pull this kind of thing all the time to get more money, and if you aren't watching your bills closely, you might be paying for something you don't want as well!!!  An extra $12.95 here, and $28.00 there, means we would have to cut our grocery budget even lower than it is now (and it is LOW now!), because we don't have anything else we could really cut in our budget!

Keep your eyes open guys and girls!!!  I am sure most of you do anyway, but this was an eye opener for me, that BOTH my phone companies tried this, and at the same time even!  I am so glad I opened my eyes and decided to look deeper on these bills.