Fraud on your phone bill

[Lud]

These guys added themselves to my company's phone bill with no authorization. Watch out for a mysterious $29.95 + tax per month charge. After doing a little research it appears that they bill under several different names such as Mercury Marketing, GoInternet.com, etc. usually billed under ILD Teleservices (see the articles below for more details).

I called and they gave a completely bogus name as the person in our company who they claim authorized the charges. They do not even provide telecom services, they provide "website hosting" (hahah - it's just an auto-generated page off their www.internet-web.net site with your telephone directory info).

It looks like they have a long history of such fraudulent activity:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=ftc+mercury+marketing

 

[KGP]

Arrgh!

They got me as well. Took a near act of God to get it off and refunded. I rarely look over my phone bill charges, so the actually had been billing me for 6 months.

 

[Lud]

I called the phone company and had them reverse the charge back to the billing company (ILD Telesystems).

I also filed a complaint with the FTC, though the FTC is already well into the legal process with these jokers as you can see from the search results returned from the above google link. Here is the response with my address and reference number X'd out:


December 19, 2003

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Re: FTC Ref. No. XXXXXXX



Thank you for recent correspondence. The Federal Trade Commission acts in the public interest to stop business practices that violate the laws it enforces. Letters from consumers and businesses are very important to the work of the Commission. They are often the first indication of a problem in the marketplace and may provide the initial evidence to begin an investigation. The Commission does not resolve individual complaints. The Commission can, however, act when it sees a pattern of possible violations developing.

The information you have provided will be recorded in our complaint retention system. This computerized system enables us to identify questionable business practices that are generating numerous complaints and may be in violation of the law.

Thank you for providing information that may be used to develop or support Commission enforcement initiatives.


Sincerely yours,


Consumer Response Center

 

[TucAZNSX]

Good luck with your refund, it took us about 3 months to get ours reversed. I hope you get yours easier than we did. Just be persistant with them.