I've Been CRAMMED*! (*UNAUTHORIZED CHARGES PUT ON YOUR CELL BILL).
And you may have been, unless you check your phone bill carefully and then take action.
This is an ALERT to the Community to check Your Cell Phone Bill CAREFULLY.
THESE ARE THE STEPS TO TAKE if you have.
This morning I paid my bills; always a happy experience. :-(
When I opened my ATT Wireless Bill, a surprise was in store for me. I was being charged $10+ dollars/mo for a subscription to a horoscope service. Hello? I didn't know that was in my stars but I knew for certain that I hadn't ordered it.
I called ATT and this is the upshot of nearly 1 hour on the friggin phone.
First Off, I was so p/o'd at having to waste this much time and enraged that they were trying to steal from me, I said I wanted to discontinue my service. When they asked 'why' I said because they had fraudulently charged me for a service I did not order and if they were going to do that I didn't want to have anything to do with them anymore. This is what followed.
1) ATT told me that they had received A LOT OF CALLS from customers who are complaining about unauthorized "3rd Party Added Services". This is called CRAMMING. ATT says that this happens when a message is sent to you and somehow you click it. (Guess what, I never clicked any friggin spam messages!) I responded that it was their responsibility to keep my account safe.
2) Representative (who was very nice, btw - wasn't her doing...) said that she would put a free "purchase locker" on my account so that no UNauthorized charges could go on. (I thought that would be assumed!)
I also complained about the huge amount of spam messages I was receiving on my cell phone, including solicitations from ATT. She said:
3) She would check my account with "no member solicitations from ATT" so I would not be getting their junkmessages from now on.
4) Said to place a 'do not call' on my cellphone:
Go to: "donotcall.gove" and register phone number (s) with email addresses. I think that you also can register various email addresses.
GRRRRR! I am plenty mad. As I research this, this 'CRAMMING' fraud has been going on for awhile now and legislators are trying to get it stopped.
THE BOTTOM LINE IS THAT ATT DOESN'T PROTECT MY PRIVATE INFORMATION AND MY ACCOUNT. I am going to call them up and demand a line, by line, explanation of every penny they charge me and if enough of us do that, then perhaps they might come to the 'business' decision that the cost of the time of their employees does not balance the money they are trying to scam! Join me in this.
Read below the fluffy toasted croissant, to find out more about CRAMMING, what it is, what is being done about it and what you can do.
The next time you get your phone bill, check the total amount due. If it's a little higher than usual, you may have fallen prey to an identity theft scam known as "cramming," in which unauthorized fees are charged to a customer's land line or cell phone account. The crammer gets away with it because the fees are usually too small to notice.
Those small charges can add up: Cramming costs Americans as much as $2 million a year, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
Crammers ply their trade through third-party billing. Carriers, including AT&T and Verizon Communications, allow users to charge third-party services to their phone bills, and they receive more than $1 billion a year to do so by third-party providers.
READ more on how to Avoid getting 'crammed'
A few days ago, Senator Chuck Schumer Called for the FCC to put an end to Cell Phone Cramming
Have you ever received a cryptic text message from an undisclosed number? It's possible you were being targeted by a phone-cramming scammer.
On Monday, U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) called for the government to put a stop to this fraud, which uses text messaging to steal money from unsuspecting consumers.
This is the
THIS IS THE FCC GUIDE ON CRAMMING; WHAT IT IS AND WHAT TO DO
Just BEWARE AND CHECK ALL YOUR BILLS.