Comments on: Answerstop Voicemail Monthly Fee - voicemail you didnt sign up for!

By: Donna

Donna — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 13:43:13 +0000

OAN is a rip off co. I filed a complaint with the FTC and people are seeing the charges of $12.95 on their bills but noone is addressing the fact that you are paying for fed, local and state taxes on top and the co. will refund the base charge, and I was told the other fees too, but they are “hidden” in my bill and not clearly shown, so they say “Nope your weren’t taxed on top of the fraudulent unauthorized charges of $12.95! surprise! Surprise!

By: Joan

Joan — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 12:46:27 +0000

I got my phone bill. I signed up for Agora Voice Messaging. I called 888-296-8079 which it said to if I had problems. Yep I have a problem, I did not order the service. She said I ordered it over the internet. I did not. She said they will cancel it. She said I needed to pay the 8.68 for the month. I will not!! She said there would be a credit issued. There better be. Now I am calling the Carrier, CenturyTel and see if they are aware and what they can do. Luckily I read my bill, how many don’t.

By: ken

ken — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 01:20:26 +0000

Had a charge of 25.90 on my ATT bill here in Austin, Texas. Charge was from Ehanced Services Billings, Inc., for Voice Mail Solutions.

Called Enhanced Services at 1-800-460-0078 and also 1-888-301-3724. They agreed to remove the charge. Also called ATT. They removed charge, too.

Paid the bill without the extra charge. Basic phone service bill must be paid to prevent interruption of service, but non-payment of other services, such as long distance, etc., results in only those specific services being interrupted. So don’t pay ESBI and only ESBI service is interrupted, and so on, as I understand it

As I understand it, ATT put a block on my account, too. Not clear yet if the block is just against ESBI, or against all unauthorized third party billings.

I too, cannot believe that ATT and others let this sort of thing happen. Should be no third party billing without customer’s advance personal consent. True, it’s cramming, which is illegal, but apparently, the way the scammers do it, it’s not illegal.

And ATT CSRs say there’s nothing they can do to stop it at their level. They did respond quickly and courteously. Without actually saying so, they implied that this was ATT’s fault, but so far it hasn’t been stopped by the powers that be. Anybody believe that ATT, et al. are not getting fees for paying the third parties? Anybody for swamping ATT with email and calls about all this.

Get on ATT.com and wander around some. Way too many bells and whistles, but after I register, I’m gonna try to find a way to block my enhanced services against third parties myself. Damn teknologee

Also reported in writing with copy of phone bill to the Public Utility Commission of Texas. Y’all do the same to the PUC in your state.

Paid phone bill without the extra charge. Noted that on check and bill, too.

Let us all hope.

By: joan

joan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:38:51 +0000

This is such a farce! I get this periodically on my phone bills. I have a business line and personal line. Each time I call, they say that I signed up for this via the internet through “a website offer” which is absolutely not true. Today when I called, they told me “Lou” signed up for this, do you know “Lou?” Seems they now don’t blame the caller, but have a stack of made up people they will blame. I guess they realized they don’t want to listen to callers say they would never sign up for this. My phone company is ATT and EVERY month I have a billing issue, it is like clock work! Supposedly I will be credited for this issue, time will tell! The company billing me is ESBI. Good luck to all!

By: William G. Hamilton

William G. Hamilton — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 19:05:07 +0000

We noticed for the first time that our AT&T bill contained a $ 12.95 per month charge for VOICEXPRESS VOICEMAIL that we did not order. Only caught it because the billing was for two months. Telephoned contact number and was told that we signed up for it on some website identified as BigRewards,com. The telephone number is for a an anwering service and BigRewards.com lists all kinds of services and companies as points of contact. This is a big rip off. It is hard to understand why the Federal and State Public Utilites Commissions have done nothing about it. AT&T gave us credit for the amount. They report this to the PUC, but otherwise their hands are tied and current law requires them to bill for third party services. We are lucky that we discovered this. We will complain to the FCC and the CA PUC. You all should do the same.

By: George

George — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 19:37:31 +0000

I also had the $8.43 charge for Agora Voice, billed through The Billing Source, show up on my CenturyTel phone bill.

I called CenturyTel, and the rep I talked to said she had the same thing happen to her. So I now have the third party billing block enabled, and CenturyTel said they would reject the Agora Voice bill on my behalf.

Then I filed a complaint with the Minnesota BBB against Agora Solution. Agora responded back giving the details of the name, address, time, IP address, and email that was used to sign up for the service on my phone number. The email address was not one of mine - they used smortsmart@gmail.com to sign up. Also, the IP address that was captured during signup was 24.186.117.165 which is located in Oakdale, NY with Optimum Online (Cablevision Systems). I don’t live anywhere near NY, so this is more proof it was not me that signed up for the service.

Right after filing the BBB complaint, I called the Billing Source, and got forwarded to Agora Solutions. The rep I talked to at Agora was nice and said she would cancel the service and put a block on my phone number in their system to prevent this from happening again.

It seems like it was too easy for me to get rid of this thing. I’m worried what will be on my future phone bills.

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:28:44 +0000

UPDATE: Mom talked to Naomi at the 1-800-681-6010 number (INTELLCOM). Naomi told my mom over and over that I authorized this charge to be put on her phone. Mom told Naomi that I am not authorized to make changes to her account - which has been inactive (on vacation) since November of 2007. Naomi told mom that she has my email, name, phone, street address, and mother’s maiden name as proof that I authorized all of this. I am trying to remember ANYONE that I had to furnish this information to since I moved to this home in April 2008 - other than my credit cards to determine where the “LEAK” might be. I believe that 5th/3rd Bank may be the only other place that I gave this information.

Anyway, Naomi told mom that she would remove the charges from Mom’s account and send me an email to confirm that the charges have been removed. I am awaiting her email !!!! These people are causing all kinds of problems with families - I looked back at the blog and saw that they tell husbands that their wives order this service and visa versa….. and with me they told my mother that I ordered something to be put on her phone that cost her money each month and when Mom said that I didn’t do it - they told her that I certainly did…. and they claimed that they have the proof in all the information they have about me…. Now - on top of everything else - my 81 year old mom is worried that someone is trying to steal my identity.

I will update again IF I get an email from Naomi !!!!

By: Lori

Lori — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:00:19 +0000

My mother’s phone is on vacation because she is living somewhere else for part of the year. However, she got this new charge on her phone of $14.95 plus tax. It says INTELLCOM MSG LLC VOICE MAIL MNTHLY FEE.
Mom called AT&T and was told that I ordered this for her. They had my name, address, phone number and other personal information. Mom called me to ask why I ordered this and what it was. I told her that I did NOT order such a thing. I tried calling mom’s number here and it is still disconnected….. there is no voice mail. I also told mom that I don’t even have AT&T service so I don’t know where they got my personal information…. and associated it with hers. She gave me a phone number that was on the bill 1-800-681-6010. I called the number and it said that ALL CURCUITS ARE BUSY. These blogs with these charges go back almost two full years - you would think that by now AT&T would be aware of the problem and deleting or refusing them when they appear…. and INVESTIGATING the situation or reporting it to LAW enforcement officials that can put a stop to it. UNLESS, of course, AT&T is also involved in this ILLEGAL service fee. Reading over the blogs on this page is VERY enlightening….. QUITE a scam !!!!!

By: Marjorie

Marjorie — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:25:41 +0000

I turned on my computer this morning and found out that I had signed up at Nationwide Assist for an 800 voicemail. They had a bogus telephone # listed as mine. Never heard of it. Called the # they gave to cancel which is (866) 527-4969. They were going to charge me 12.95 p/m. They had the info transferred to them from another e-mail I got that said I had signed up for USCreditFind, Inc. I cancelled that one also, it was for 9.99 p/m. Don’t know how many more I will get.

By: I LaBrea

I LaBrea — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:23:12 +0000

Same story as mentioned earlier. I got a charge for $8.43 on my Verizon bill for Agora Voice Messaging One-time setup.
Verizon told me it si the result of someone signing up for a service with my name and number. When I asked the rep if they required the 3rd party to give the subscriber account number before accepting such charges, she said that is not a requirement. (!!) The only thing they can do is put a 3rd-party billing block on my number, which I have done.

I called the 800 number for Agora, the 3rd party rep who answered the phone answered as “Customer Service”, no company name.
When I pressed him for the company name, he said he represented Agora and “other companies”

The rep told me the person who signed up was my wife’s name and our phone number, as the result of taking an online survey.
After much prodding, I got him to give me their signup web page: http://www.agorasolution.com/agora_2.asp

It’s a form that accepts name, phone number,address, email, gender, etc.
The product is voicemail, cost is $12.95/month + the one-time charge of $8.43
There are 3 radio buttons you have to click saying that you agree to the terms. All very straightforward, I must say.
Except, my wife says she never filled out the form, instead she did say she entered some kind of sweepstakes where she gave out that information.

The “rep” agreed to cancel the “service”, effective today. He would not agree to refund the $8.43, however, saying that we had “agreed to it”.

So we got “crammed” for the $8.43.

My options at this point are:

1. I can file a complaint with the FCC, at this address:
Federal Communications Commission
Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau
Consumer Inquiries and Complaints Division
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20554.

2. I can share the registrant information for agorasolution.com with anyone who reads this blog, in case you would like to contact the person responsible for the website:
Domain Name: AGORASOLUTION.COM
Registrar: NETWORK SOLUTIONS, LLC.
Whois Server: whois.networksolutions.com
Referral URL: http://www.networksolutions.com

Creation Date: 30-jun-2003
Expiration Date: 30-jun-2010

This is the person responsible for the domain:
Registrant:

Morrison, Geoff
8160 County Road 42
Savage, MN 55378
US

Domain Name: AGORASOLUTION.COM

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Morrison, Geoff bonked86405@mypacks.net

8160 County Road 42
Savage, MN 55378
US
612-605-1646

This doesn’t check out in Anywho, but that doesn’t mean anything. the area code resolves to Twin Cites, MN.