Complain about a product or service

Buzz Telecom

M. V. of Tuckerman AR (03/04/07)

They switched my long-distance without permission and continue to send bills for services not requested. Changed name to UMCC Holdings in Indianapolis. They refuse to respond to letters and phone calls. I have pending charges of $81.89 with the balance continuing to increase due to late charges.

Fred of Hayes VA (02/26/07)

I received a call offering discount long-distance service and I accepted. My phone bills increased so I changed my service to Verizon and cancelled my Buzz Telecom service. I am still being billed for Buzz Telecom by USBI.

Sandra of Marietta GA (02/15/07)

I got my phone bill and there was a charge from Buzz Telecom. Called Bellsouth and they took it off my bill and credited me $40.70. I then talked to Pearl with USBI on 9-28-06. Have written a letter and called many times, but no contact on their part except to send me bills. They say I owe them $36.46. I will not pay them for I don't have an account with them. Very aggravating!

Patt of Guttenberg IA (02/09/07)

On Aug. 3, 2006 Chris called; said he was calling on behalf of Alpine Communications. Wanted to discuss long distance calling rates and made me an offer. He stated he would send me an agreement in the mail. (I have never received this.) Said there would be a one time charge of $29.95 (guaranteed for life) along with much lower costs of long distance calls. To date I received one bill from Buzz for $14.62 which I did pay.

Last week I received a bill from UMCC Holdings stating they had taken over Buzz and a bill for $13.09. I have tried to contact them to no avail. I have contacted Alpine Communications, my phone service agency and they have told me BUZZ is in no way associated with them. This has been very stressful trying to get them out of my life.

James of Brunswick GA (01/17/07)
Buzz somehow tricked me into thinking that they were linked with MCI and the started billing me. Somewhere along the line MCI stopped getting the payment and so I was disconnected for non payment. This was my home and Business phone. I had to send a lot of money before I could even switch back to Bell south. Now MCI is still billing me for what Buzz was paid. Can you help?

I was without a busness phone for almost a week. I don't know how much business I missed but it is possible to have been well over 1,000 dollars.

Beth of Tucker GA (12/23/06)

My elderly mother (94) received a bill from Buzz Telecom. I tried for a week to contact the company by phone and resorted to e-mailing them with a complaint. They e-mailed me back and said that I could get a recording of my mother's verbal agreement to their service. I had checked with my mother's long-distance carrier and the PIC freeze is still in place.

I have tried to cancel the service and will check her phone bill to make sure that there are not charges from Buzz Telecom on it. My mother lives in Atlanta and I handle all of her finances. This has been a very frustrating experience and after researching Buzz Telecom, I have discovered that we are victims of cramming.

Julie of Rome GA (09/12/06)
I was contacted by a representative of Buzz Telecom who stated that they felt that senior citizens in Georgia were being charged too much for telephone services and long distance charges. She offered to lower my bill by $10/month. I told her I was very happy with my current long distance provider and had no intentions of changing. She was very persistent about the savings I would enjoy but after much prompting, she finally acknowledged that there would be a one-time only administrative fee of $29.95 which could be paid in three installments and could be paid in with my Bell South bill.

At least four or five times during our conversation, I told her to confirm my understanding of what she was offering which was:

1. I did not have to change the way I was currently making long distance calls from my home phone;
2. After paying the initial charge of $29.95, the charge of $14.90 I was currently paying for residential service to Bell South would be reduced to $4.90;
3. There would be no more charges down the line for this discounted rate.

To all of these questions each time, she answered Yes. Unfortunately, against my better judgment (too late now!) I agreed to give it a try. She did inform me that if I cancelled this service before 90 days, it would cost me $19.95. I told her that I would sign up for the three installment payments. She then switched me over to someone else to sign up and they would ask me some questions and get me signed up. Again, unfortunately, I didn't listen closely enough to the questions I was asked and signed up.

When I got my first bill, the total amount of $29.95 was added to my bill (not the first of three installments I had asked for). I paid the total charge anyway and expected my next phone bill to reflect the discounted charge. Didn't happen. When I called USBI to question why, I was told that they only do the billing for Buzz Telecom and did not have anything to do with charges except to do billing. I called Buzz Telecom to tell them I wanted to cancel their service, even though I understood that I would be penalized $19.95 for cancellation before the 90 days, I thought the cancellation charges would come from the $29.95 I had already paid and they would owe me a refund of $10.

Not so! I was told there would be an additional charge of $19.95. The representative did apologize for the misrepresentation and deception of the plan and advised me to wait until 9/21/06 to cancel (when my 90 day period would end) and I would not have to pay cancellation charge. I have a friend who had same experience except they have added charges to her bill in addition to the $29.95 administrative fee. To date, I have not had additional charges on my phone bill. We are embarrassed and angry that we fell for such a scam and we don't know what to do about it.

Apparently senior citizens are the major targets for these people as I have discovered on internet.