Saturday, May 1, 2010

Watch Your Phone Bill

Word to the wise: make sure someone checks your phone bill from front to back every month. There may well be unexpected and unauthorized charges hiding on there.

Last week I got a call from the folks at Verizon. Somehow the change of address notice I sent out in October didn't get processed. I expected a big hassle, but I only had to explain myself to two people with one transfer in between. Quite a pleasant surprise.

The second person I talked to, Gina, asks me a bunch of qualifying questions. But she was friendly and professional. Finally, she asked if I knew my bill was over $50 a month. I said no, I should only have the charge for forwarding my number to my AccessLine - about $20 a month.

Gina explained that there's a company who has added it's Web hosting services to my bill at a cost of $50 plus tax per month. Seems this happens frequently, and the charge shows up on the back of the last page of the bill. Obviously this slipped by us. Seems that's what these scamsters count on. Gina worked on my account for about half an hour, then called me back with the good news that I now have a $568 credit on my bill. Great work. Great service.

No comments: