HAVE YOU BEEN CRAMMED?

Apparently there was some law written, when Ma Bell was alive and well, that allowed small companies to bill things connected to your phone directly onto your phone bill. Verizon is allowing the same and apparently it is legal. Understandably, if you make calls from a hospital bed or watch TV and bill it to you home phone, that bill can be added, as can collect calls made to your phone from little Podunk places. However, it seems some greedy people are pulling some interesting tricks.

For example, I noted that I was billed $14.95 plus $.75 for miscellaneous transactions a month ago. I phoned Verizon's customer service and told them I had not authorized any additional services. I talked to a very decent woman who said she would take it off my bill and block further bills...I should see it taken off my next bill.

Not surprisingly, the next bill showed nothing taken off and the same charge re-appearing. This time it was marked transaction clearing charges...naturally giving no indication what was being charged to clear. It listed: Messages from Transaction Clearing
Tax & Fees
All tax and fees are authorized by Federal, State or Local Governments. Fees are explained by selecting the icon by the term. (There was no icon by the term).

Note that there is still not an explanation about which Verizon could enlighten as to what was being billed. The service rep pointed out that I had missed a toll-free number which I could call about the charge. I called and learned that I had presumably signed up for voice mail, a free trial, that I would have to cancel within a month or pay the charge. I have never had a need for voice mail and 800 numbers and know that I could not have signed up but somehow I may have looked at an ad and in making an inquiry to understand it, I was grasped and reeled in without my knowledge. I was told I should have called before the 30 days was up and the representative had difficulty understanding that one cannot call in to cancel something they don't know they have and have never used.

Fifty minutes of wasted time later, I was given a confirmation number that I had canceled whatever it was someone thought I ordered, from a place I do not recall having ever been to, for something I have no real idea as to what the 'product' really is. However, I made clear that I would refuse to pay, that Verizon already had it listed as being contested, blah-blah, woof-woof. The company is supposed to be Eversave (read Neversave) for Walgreen's, billed through Supreme Vm Monthly Fee. If you want to avoid the cram trap, steer clear of these names.

The upshot is that there are more sneaky ads and tricks to pull an unsuspecting window shopper or internet troller than we are prepared to outwit. And that, dear readers, is how America sees that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.