By Joel Thurtell
If you get telephone service from ATT, better cast a wary eye over your bill.
You might find what I found–phony charges.
My January ATT bill contained more than my usual bill for phone and Internet connections.
There are three new companies listed on the back pages of my bill.
All told, they were tugging $58.37 from my checking account.
I never asked for their services.
I’d never heard of these companies.
Enhanced Services Billing, Inc. was pulling $31.69.
ILD Telecommunications, Inc. tapped me for $12.95.
OAN Services, Inc. took $13.73.
What’s going on here?
I called 888-288-3724 for ESBI — Enhanced Services Billing, Inc.
A pleasant-sounding woman told me she couldn’t answer my questions. ESBI bills for two other companies, but isn’t responsible for answering questions about their service.
The two firms ESBI collects money for but doesn’t answer for are United Comm. Link, LLC, at 1-866-527-4973 and Conxtr, LLC, at 1-800-201-7279.
Turns out United Comm. Link, LLC billed me $14.95 for a monthly “voicemail fee.”
Funny thing, but we don’t subscribe to voice mail.
But wait, guess what: The other company represented by Enhanced Services Billing, Conxtr, LLC, also billed me for voice mail at the slightly reduced rate of $13.95.
These prices don’t count taxes.
I called Conxtr, LLC and was told that I’d signed up for this service by responding to a telemarketer in December of 2009.
No way, said I.
But you gave your e-mail address, she said: tldjn@live.com.
Bogus.
What’s your birth date? the Conxtr woman asked.
Uh-uh, I said. You have enough information on me.
Is it March 26, 1982? she asked.
Don’t I wish.
What that tells me is the Internet scammer who fraudulently signed me up is probably a 28-year-old.
Cancel it.
No problem. Conxtr cancelled my voicemail service, which I never ordered and never got.
Then I called United Comm. Link, LLC. I was told that I’d signed up for their voice mail service on the Internet on December 13, 2009. She not only cancelled the service, but she gave me a credit.
Hah! I called Conxtr back and got a credit from them, too. This time, I was told that I signed up for their service on the Internet. Remember, the first operator said I was gulled by a telemarketer. Seems inconsistent to me.
Next, I called Adigitalvillage.com, which was charging us $12.95 for “Gold Webhosting.”
I learned that I was signed up for that bogus service on December 13 of last year, again with the fake date of birth in 1982 and the fake e-mail address of tlbjn@live.com
“We never verify birth dates–nobody’s honest, anyway,” the Adigitalvillage.com person told me.
She erased the charge.
Finally, I called ID LifeGuards, Inc.
IF Life Guards claims to offer “credit protect/repair” for $12.95 a month.
Too bad they don’t offer “scam protect/repair”.
Cancelled and credit.
After half a dozen phone calls and the better part of an hour, I’d made myself whole.
I called ATT and was told they’re getting lots of complaints from customers who didn’t ask for services they’re nevertheless being billed for.
If ATT customers say the third-party companies refuse to give them credit, ATT erases the bills After all, they’re ATT bills.
ATT’s advice: Wait for the credits to appear, then call ATT and ask them to block third-party billings to our line. The disadvantage, she said, is that if I ever need to bill that way, like, say I’m in a hospital and need to bill television services,I’d be out of luck. Guess I’ll take that chance.
Here’s what I want to know:
Why are third-party companies allowed to tack their billings onto ATT’s charges?
Why is it so easy to sign unsuspecting ATT customers up for bogus services?
Who is signing us up?
The answer, of course, is that the benefit must be going to whomever profits from fraudulent sign-ups.
That would not be ATT. Sounds like it’s a pain for them to administer this mess.
Hmmm. Now let’s see, who is making money off these services?
Let me have another look at that bill.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com
hi joel,
just had the same exact experience w/ILD Teleservices, Inc. – had me on hold for 23 minutes. she immediately offered to credit me for the 2 months of “credit protection services” i never ordered. evidently someone ordered the service on-line, w/a totally different name than mine, and had the service billed to my phone number. what a total waste of everyone’s time! by the way, AT&T is also crediting me immediately for this sham service, as opposed to ILD who said it would take up to 8 weeks – ridiculous.
thanks for your post – easy to find with google
Joel, nice work! I just went online to pay my mortgage last nite, and noticed that my ATT bill (auto draft, of course…) had also jumped by $12.95 for Care Guard Credit Repair. What a pain in the rear, as I too tried ATT first, only to be told by them that I had to call the biller and get them to reverse it. They did. Waste of a half hour!
Just to add another twist, “Tim” at ATT told me that the third party billers went to Congress back in the ’90s to complain that ATT had such a phone monopoly that they should be allowed to submit bills through them for services…why, I can’t tell you. I mean, I get it if there’s some web hosting service, or add’l voice service or something, but why can’t a credit service just send their customers a bill like Gap, Chevron or anybody else? Well, then it’d be too hard to scam folks.
So then Tim offers me a solution: no, it’s not blocking the third party billers, that wasn’t mentioned…he parlayed this into trying to sell me ATT U-verse services, “all digital, faster internet, TV included!!”, because it’s not regulated by the FCC, so they don’t have to allow third party billers…
Genius. I’ll get right on that…
I also received the ID Lifeguard credit protect charge in Jan and Feb billed through verizon. Also received a 14.95 charge a VM monthly fee. I called the number listed 1-877-257-2455 and questioned the lady. She said the charge was coming from http://www.enjoyaccess.com.
Same thing with ILD. Only their big mistake was billing a number that I had canceled 6 years ago. When asked how I signed up, they say my son did, online. I asked for the IP address of the computer he used. Of course, he didn’t know. There are over 800 complaints against ILD and it’s growing every day. I just filed a complaint with the Ohio Attorney Generals office. I also asked Verizon to drop ILD as a third party biller. File a complaint! Don’t be afraid to take some action. How many people don’t even look at the bill and just pay. It’s called ‘cramming’.
I too have been charged by adigitalvillage.com. They say my husband signed up in January online. However, they used our incorrectly spelled last name from the phone book, they had an incorrect DOB, an email account neither of us have, and an Internet provider I sure as heck do not have. They did provide me with an IP address but since that changes every 8 days that does me no good. They said they would remove the charges and “block” future accounts on our number. This makes me so angry! How could AT&T allow this to happen? What recourse do I have? I feel so violated….
I too just received my bill when a 12.95 charge from ID Life Grauds. I called the questions number and the lady dropped the charge, (of course she said it would take 2 billing periods to complete ) and said she placed a block on my number so ID Life Graud can no longer bill my number. Thanks for all your info. on this subject.
P.S. I am still trying to get in touch with the AT&T office to get the charges drop right now. I do NOT plan on paying this 12.95…
I haven’t been looking my bills over as I should, so I did today (April 5, 2010) and found that I have been paying for a service from mybillingservice,inc. that I never ordered and have never heard of until today. I called the 800 number and was told that they would remove the charges and I was too late to call ATT today. They will certainly hear from me tomorrow! This happened last year,too, with three (I think) companies charging me for services I never ordered and ATT letting them get away with this fraudulent scam again. I am furious with ATT for allowing this to happen again to me and all the rest of you. It is disgraceful and dishonest and must be illegal, too.
Hello Joel,
ILD Teleservices is not a fraudulent practice – here’s what we do.
ILD Teleservices is a convenient and secure payment method designed for purchasing on the web or over the phone. Like a credit account, ILD provides the flexibility to buy without using your credit card. Hundreds of businesses offer Bill to Phone payment from ILD, giving you a way to pay by charging your phone bill. Plus, ILD also provides you with “purchase assurance” protection; like the protection provided by your bank and credit card companies. This means you are not responsible for unauthorized charges. So, if you feel like you have been wrongly billed, please call ILD at (800) 953-7765 and we’ll help you or you can get support by visiting our self help center at http://www.ildteleservices.com/support.html.
Like any bill, it’s important to closely review your phone bill each and every month because whether it’s your phone bill, credit card statement, electric or cable, sometimes charges end up on your bill that you should question. Your phone bill should be treated like any other purchase you make, so take a few minutes each month and closely review all of the charges, just like you do with your bank statement and credit card statements.
You can read our blog for helpful hints on how to protect yourself from fraudulent charges as well as learn more about our services.
http://www.ildteleservicesblog.com
Thank you,
Monica Melgar
Dear Monica — You can read my blog (http://joelontheroad.com/?p=3794) for a description of how persons unknown used a false birthdate and fake e-mail address to add several fee-based services to my ATT bill without my permission. Your company was one of them. This was enough for ATT to start billing me at the rate of $12.95 per month, a useless (to me) fee that went to your company. Now, maybe your company didn’t falsely sign me up for this unwanted service. But whoever did it, the act benefited your company and it hurt me. It seems like you might want to look into this fraudulent activity and try to make sure it isn’t repeated, rather than post flimsy defenses on a blog that exposed the larceny.
Joel Thurtell
Hi Joel,
On behalf of ILD, we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has caused, and hope the billing issue has since been resolved to your satisfaction.
We look into the business practices of all merchants using ILD’s Bill to Phone payment. In fact, ILD has stringent policies and procedures to guard against what you seemed to have experienced, and we continually strive to improve. We take every measure possible to ensure we are working with merchants that do not engage in this practice, like conducting background searches, review of merchant’s sales methods, and adherence to strict authorization and verification procedures. We also make every effort to ensure that consumers who may fraudulently sign up for a promotion online and bill the charges to someone else are caught in our system. However in this case it was not caught and we appreciate you pointing it out so that we may continue to make improvements to our verification process. We view our role as a first line of defense in guarding against consumer fraud, and as such we actively monitor our merchant customer’s business practices, chargeback thresholds and the detail in the records submitted to us for billing. ILD remains vigilant in making sure unauthorized transactions are not processed, continually refining our processes.
Also, as a result of our stringent business practices and tools, like iValidate (which verifies personally identifiable information), we have terminated billing agreements with merchant customers found in violation of our policies, and refused billing for what appeared to be questionable authorizations by consumers.
Again, we apologize for the experience you’ve had. If you have any questions or concerns, please send us an email to askild@ildmail.com.
Thanks,
Monica
Hey Joel,
Just got my Verizon bill today and found March and April charges for $12.95/mo. Called ILD Teleservices and they were more than happy to credit the $25.90 to my phone bill. I was so “PO’d” I didn’t think to ask her how my name and number got put into their system. I Googled ILD and found your blog. Thanks for the info. I’ll keep you posted as to the progress with Verizon.
Dwain
“Plus, ILD also provides you with “purchase assurance” protection; like the protection provided by your bank and credit card companies. This means you are not responsible for unauthorized charges. ”
So Monica, you mean like the fraudulent charges your company has placed on my Verizon account. To a dedicated fax #. A fax # that could not have authorized this payment.
A “purchase assurance” protection program to protect us against….YOU!
Calling your company was a worthless waste of time. Now after 24 minutes on the phone with Verizon Billing your charges may go away. I have ordered a block on ALL third party billing.
Thanks ID…for the waste of my valuable time.
I only noticed the fraudulent “ID Lifeguards” billing after I had been paying $12.50 for several months. I protested to Verizon who said they would put a block on ILD charges. But this month, it is back again,but this time as IDL. This is out and out fraud and I’m going to report it to my Stae Attorney General and any other authorities who can take action against these people. Maybe a class action lawsuit would be a good idea – there muts be thousands of people in the same predicament!
Dear chrisjournal@yahoo.com — I and others who are following this very interesting means of transferring wealth to the pockets of undeserving corporations would appreciate the details of your experience. Also, please keep us abreast of whatever actions you take — JT
Got this fake charge on my bill , ID Life Guards , $12.95 on 5-28
then $12.95 0n 6-11.
NOT AUTHORIZED.
AT&T took the charges off, but this is ridiculous that any random supposed “company” can charge your account.
I am sending this to my Attorney General’s office.
I was charged 12.95 a month for two billing cycles by ILD billed on my Verizon account. I never would have noticed this except the bill seemed too high since I had recently downgraded services. When I phoned ILD they did not even have my information! They could not tell me who I was, and I was the one being charged for their scam service. They said they would credit my account, but have not done so. Today, I called Verizon and they are issuing me a credit and offering me a bill block service for free. That is fine, but this shouldn’t happen in the first place. Bill blocking should be the norm, not a special service. I am also contacting the State Attorney General regarding both Verizon and ILD. Both parties have a responsibility to act ethically and it appears from your blog that At&t and Verizon may possibly be working with ILD, because they normally do not issue refunds so quickly.
Good for you! You are absolutely correct that both companies are taking part in the fraud.
JT
Add the NC Attorney General’s Office. Do these people really think consumers will let them continue to steal? Monica, for help or assistance from your jail cell, please contact the prison guard, who hopefully will spit on you instead.
ILD does not investigate the companies they bill for. As i see these posts are from months ago, i just received a statement from at&t with the fraudulent $12.95 charge on my phone bill from IDL who is billing for ID LIFEGUARD. Google ID LIFEGUARD & you will see that the Illinois Attorney General filed a complaint against ID LIFEGUARD on Sept 2, 2010. Why has the OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL not done anything about this since Bill from above filed a complaint with them back in march. Maybe we should all file civil suits agains ILD, ID LIFEGUARD, AT&T, & the OHIO ATTORNEY GENERAL for not taking care of this.
Thank you, Belinda. Maybe we should.
JT
This scam is STILL going on! I just received an email from ID Lifeguards thanking me for signing up for their $12.95/month service. What?! NEVER did I ever sign up for this nor request this.
I immediately emailed their customer service to have it removed. Time will tell if this really happens.
This is now the 2nd time this year that this company has attempted to bill my AT&T bill. When will they ever stop?
Just like Life Lock, freecreditreport.com, and other personal theft protection services, ID Lifeguards give consumers personal data protection tools like credit fraud alerts and free credit reports; our members are covered by our $1 Million Total Service Guarantee to ensure our members are protected in the event their identity is compromised.
ID Lifeguards offers “Purchase Assurance Protection”, like the protection provided by your bank or credit card company. This means that you are not responsible for unauthorized charges. If you feel you have been wrongly billed, please call ID Lifeguards right away at (800) 309-7022 or visit our website at http://www.idlifeguards.com. You can also send an email to my attention at member_services@idlifeguards.com. Please include your contact information and the billed phone number, and I will personally make sure that your issue is resolved to your satisfaction.
If any of your other readers would like us to conduct a similar investigation of the charges on their bills, they can send me the same information to member_services@idlifeguards.com.
Sincerely,
Jenny
Awakened!Dare ye charge thy King of Ohio for a second fraudulent internet account.$227.32! I wasn’t notified of this for 5 months.At&t sent me to Franklin Collection.I made Franky send me a fraud package.And OF COURSE they got my address and the disputed address wrong(reversed on purpose as forseen).After I got thru to at&t(after 46 hours on and off)to a lady at the theft of identity dept.(worker ID number refused by a Mrs.Ms.,Barnes.)she kept refusing to send a fraud package saying”Its your address”.I repeated my address from my valid account’s bill and told her that it clearly shows me in unit 3 of the buildings main address.She still refused.I forced her to stop the games(by telling her my lawyer was recording my stress,and their diversions) thus,my 1st Victory! case#225 726-866 recalled by “Ms.Barnes”.Recall does not solve who did it(just covers it up).OR WILL IT?A slip-up from an at&t worker said the account was set up thru a Washington D.C. computer company.Any Ideas?With my lawyers help,I will see who and,what computer set up the account.Phone and Utilities fraud is 27% of all fraud in ohio.Its beyond personal.I will call in and help people in my area who have been sCRAMmmed.I’m pretty sure its a cyber/terrorist organisation anyway you look at it.Centered in D.C.? Maybe a Treasury Dept? well duh! after 72 years paper loses it’s monitary value.Scams and drug money fuel thy serpents world.Final answer?>Neural Lie Detector Phone Application for all. It’s coming soon to a liar near you! hehe. Question and Fire the person(s) who wrote the at&t billing program,and retrace the tracks they left behind.And now about those Canadian Drug Lobbyists…RIP,USA healthcare.Please repost critical steps of this victory.EVERYWHERE! 26% hehe
Today I discovered that I was a new victim of ID Life Guards. Fortunately I did not have the lousy, drawn-out experience of others when I called to complain and cancel the unauthorized account. However, the poor girl on the phone spoke poor English, could not deviate from her script, and would not truthfully answer my question about how I was signed up. Her non-answer, that I had signed up online, was 100% untrue and impossible. She hung up on me. I filed comments with the FTC and a complaint with the CA Attorney General’s office. AT&T recommended filing with the PUC and FCC, but I could not find on their web sites any pages appropriate for the problem.
My brother just got his att bill and noticed an increased in charges. Upon scrutinizing the bill, he found he was charged for for an ID guard. When he called about it, they told him I had purchased it. I haven’t made any purchases on my brother’s account. I didn’t even know what an ID Guard was until I started googling it. I don’t know how they got my name, other than I was on my brother’s account about 7 years ago with att. I left them then, bc I found att to be the ultimate scammers of their own customers.
I just sent this page to my brother, I hope he rips into them and then reports them. Better yet, I hope he joins a class action lawsuit.
Just got off the phone with ILD – AT&T should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to go on.
I would suggest that a class action lawsuit is coming! Brace yourselves….
Joel, thank you so much for this post and allowing comments. Unfortunately, I have been billed $16/month by ILD on my Verizon bill since last July. Of course: I should have been more scrupulous in looking out for these crooks. Now I will be. What a scam. ILD and Verizon both offered to credit me for the past three months, but of course that means I’m still out $100. When I asked who authorized the charges, all they had correct was my home address. The name, email address, birth date, and maiden name were all news to me. I had to laugh that ILD has chimed in here on their “stringent policies.” How about checking out the email’s IP address? (Free and easy to do — I did it.) The email came from an IP address located in CA. The home address given was NJ. Also, how about checking out if such a person lives at the given address? Obviously that never happened either. And both ILD and Verizon may have noticed that the person “authorizing” the charges has a different name than the person on the phone bill. What a creepy scam ILD is. I hope they are shut down and people are arrested. It is out and out theft.
I’ve now blocked third-party billing and filed complaints with the FCC, the BBB, and the FTC. Tomorrow I will file a complaint with my state’s Attorney General’s office. I hope lots of people make a stink about this and shut down this crooked operation.
I agree that the phone companies are to blame as well for allowing shady companies to charge their customers for nothing.
And Monica (from ILD): I would not use the email address you provided here. I would not trust you with my email address or any information. ILD is certain to use it fraudulently. It seems that is the only way that your company makes money — by ripping people off.
Just got him by ID Life Guards twice in one bill. $12.95 a pop. Why isn’t Glendale, California stopping this scam company?
Hi,
Thanks to your web page I got $147.00 back from ATT. Took quite some time on the phone. First call was 43 min on hold. Next time I stated to the ATT machine my call was for fraud. The machine confirmed it was a legal matter and the call went to a rep. He pretended he did not know what the charges were (well known 1-877-257-2455 scam that uses several titles for the charge, such as TRANSACTION SERVICES). He repeated I should call this number several times (which goes to a machine) and then sent me to his supervisor which was also a machine. My second call started the same. I wanted to speak towards fraud. I then asked the rep where my permission was given for third party charges. The rep repeated the statement about congress forcing ATT to work with third party billing. I countered with “I did not give ATT permission for these and I wanted them taken off for the last five years”. She asked me to contact the fake number again and I repeated I did not give ATT permission for these and I wanted these charges taken off for the last five years, and that this was well known issue in many newspapers. She said she had never heard of this. I told her I know she has removed hundreds of these charges and that she should move forward with the process for the last 5 years. She repeated she had never heard of any of this. I repeated I want ATT to remove these charges for the last 5 years. At this she totally gave up the party line and went back through my bills back to 2003. Very pleasant person after she gave up trying to distract me (clearly ATT trained responses). She also admitted she read the newspaper stories and that if this happens again next call ATT first and reverse the charges. I requested a block on all third party billing. She put a block on this particular billing (but only for my bill) and she put a note attempting to block all third party billing saying it may or may not work. This scam must make millions but I have to believe ATT gets cash for administrating these fake charges. Would love to know if it 2% or 50%. So what is the definition of racketeering again?
We just realized today while talking with AT&T that we’ve been sucked into the ID Life Guards scam as well. I assumed this fee was for services from AT&T and didn’t realize it was a third party charging us for the past 11-12 months. I called ILD immediately after getting off the phone with AT&T and they said they could only look at the past three months of billings. They couldn’t see anything prior to that. Does this sound like a reputable company if they can’t even see their billings for a specific number more than 3 months in the past?
Sandra at ILD said that we had signed up for it on the internet but couldn’t tell us how. I disagreed with her. She offered to refund us for 3 months and told me I had to scan in each phone bill for the other 8-9 months and email them to customercare@IDLifeguard.com and they would consider my request. I asked to speak with a supervisor and surprise, surprise, no supervisor was available. Another red flag this is not a reputable company.
I’m on hold right now with AT&T to block all 3rd party billings and to ask about a refund. What a complete scam!
Verizon told me, when IDGuards billed me 3 MONTHS via paymenytone on my phone bill, that the FCC or FTC makes them allow people to use the phone number as a charge card. I personally think the Verizon rep was talking out of his ass. He said I can block it now but can’t block it before something like this happens. What BS.
Verizon has a settlement about cramming as of 05/30/2012 – https://www.verizonthirdpartybillingsettlement.com/(S(dcvs0fpu2pwgl13yrswjpjus))/Default.aspx
Verizon has a settlement about cramming as of 05/30/2012 . Get $40 flat claim or file one if you think is more. I caught my cram charge the first month and had to call Verizon four times to get it resolved. It is a class action lawsuit.
https://www.verizonthirdpartybillingsettlement.com
It’s June 2012 and ID Guards.net and DOINK, Media LLC are still at it in Michigan. My experience was just like every other post. Just keep an eye on your bill is all I can offer you. AT&T seems willing enough to cancel the charges but not interested enough in stopping 3rd party billing practices.