Primo Communications

In July 2011, we became a client of Primo Communications. We had not received any bills from them for three months. In October, we received a telephone message regarding an existing balance and I called back immediately. The CSR asked for my address again and assured me that I will receive the bill. I paid the total amount right away despite the fact that it was overloaded with all kind of extra fees. First of all, there are two fees that we have not been aware of: the Network Access Contribution and the Universal Subscriber Fund. On top of this, Primo Communications charged us late fees and $4.82 Credit Recovery.

In December, I called this company to explain that it was not our fault we didn't receive the bills and we should not have to pay the penalties. A very rude CSR said that all she can do is to waive the Credit Recovery fee for the previous month only. After about three weeks, we switched to another provider. Surprisingly, we received the December bill showing an amount of $2.47 but no credit applied as promised. I called Primo again to apply the credit against the December charges but I was told instead that this was not possible since we dropped their services. I told CSR that I would not pay and she threatened to send me to the collection agency.

In January 2012, I got another bill with the December amount + late payment + Credit Recovery + Network Access Contribution + Universal Subscriber Fund + HST even though we are not their client anymore. I am wondering if the US government knows about all these fees. I called them again without any result. I can not believe this company is still in business when it earns money fraudulently by all these fees, not by services provided.

This company is charging people for calls that they are not making. I canceled my service in September verbally and wrote "CANCEL MY SERVICE" on the last invoice I paid. Today, I received a bill for three calls in November which I did not make. I am using a prepaid card from another company instead. This company is ripping people off.

I just can't believe, I never experienced something like this in my life. I called to cancel my service with Primo because connection was terrible and I couldn't pay bill through my bank. Customer service, how they call themselves, because I could hear kids voices at the back were so rude and mean. First they hanged up on me. I called back and they refused to cancel the service. Dianne was first that I spoke with, then with Ann. She told me that they can't cancel but somebody will call me back to do the cancellation process. Nobody called.

Next day, I called again and spoke with Dianne. Again she was rude and said she didn't talk with me day before and she said she was in the hospital with her dad. She was questioning why I'm cancelling my account and when I explained to her, she said the line was bad because I didn't pay my bill. She was threatening me if I don't pay she won't cancel my account. Now I'm afraid what will be on next bill which I'll receive next month because they are charging for calls you didn't make. They are also charging for some network access contribution, credit recovery and universal subscriber fund that cost you 30% on top of your use.

I would like to share my experience with telephone company Primo Communications. I had them for some period of time as my long distance company. And due to increasingly bad service and connection problems that were increasing over time, as well as unexplained and growing charges, I canceled after I have paid all that I owed to them for the time I had a service.

Afterwhile, I received the bill that I owed some amount, and I called several times, even wrote an email requesting the copy of the itemized bill with dates and specified length of alleged service that I did not pay for, according to them. I did not receive this copy so far.

Each time, some person who answered the call tried to threaten me into paying that amount over the phone without providing answer and also threatened to send me to collection agency and court if I did not do so. I refused to pay, armed with experience of their poor professionalism and lies and afraid that they can use my card info to rob me even further.

Today, I received a call from some alleged collection agency that did not provide their name, asking me to pay some never-heard-before amount, if I did not want to go to court. I told the person that I am still waiting from Primo Communications for the copy of the bill where I can see in details the services for which I incurred that bill. And the person said that I have to call Primo and talk to them. Reluctantly I did, and I talked to a person named Ana (if that was her right name) and explained one more time. She said they will send me to court, that they do not want to send that copy (allegedly they had a proof that I received it) and if I do not settle with her right there and then with paying my bill over the phone, she will send me to court. I asked to talk to the manager. She said she is the manager and that there is nothing more to say and she is not sending the copy.

I went online and read all complaints posted about that company. Every one seemed like my own experience all over again.

One day, I had received this phone call and somebody on the other side convinced me to say yes to let Primo Communications be my long distance provider. What a big mistake. On the next day, I changed my mind and called to cancel my service with them. I called my previous long service provider to sign back with them. After that phone call, I don't even think of Primo Communications anymore because I thought I took all the steps I needed to take to go back to my previous long distance provider, until I saw a bill from them and the charges were all after I cancelled with them.

I called my long distance provider and asked them how did that happened. They told me that they had so many similar cases when Primo Communications grabbed customers' phone calls even after they cancelled with them. And they can do so because they do have the information they needed such as SSN, etc. I called Primo Communications to ask them how I got charged after I cancelled. Their customer service was beyond poor, unprofessional and very rude. They did not want to talk to me about what happened, but told "Well, if you want to cancel, you can cancel now." That wasn't my point; my point was why was I charged from them when I already had my service cancelled with them. They would hang up and not like to talk about it. That was so weird compared to all the other legitimate businesses.

I cannot believe that this company is still in business. Somebody need to do something as soon as possible or many more customers will be tricked or overcharged with big money! Their customer support representatives are so rude that I had to tell Nada (she is Bosnian) that if she worked in American company, she would not be at work "tomorrow". She refused to tell me her name. She did when I told her that she has to do it by the law (maybe she told me wrong name, who knows?) I asked her who the owner is of the company and she did not want to tell me. My guess was that owner is a Serbian or Romanian person since only in these countries customer representatives can behave like that without being punished. I asked her that question because I wanted to know if they are targeting minority people (Serbs, Bosnians, Romanians and Albanians). As you know, that is against law to have that kind of practices. She replied that Primo is an American company and that the owners (three of them) are Americans. But a representative from canceling department confirmed my suspicion, saying, "All our customers are Serbs, Bosnians, Romanians and Albanians, we do not have other customers, and those men that we are targeting are not minority."

I told her that Serbs, Bosnians, Romanians and Albanians, including me, are minority in this country and that by doing this kind of tricks and overcharging the people, they are exactly doing that (targeting minority) and somebody may sue them because of that (I will do that if they do not refund their overcharged bills).

I asked them how this could have happened and was told that it was due to a computer glitch. But how can this be an issue for months and they did nothing to correct it (probably many people saw that and complained about that so they knew about it much earlier and did not do anything about it). As a matter of fact, I am sure they did this on purpose and a proof of that is that many customers complained and said that they did the same to all of them.

So this is their practice, how they take more money from every customer (most people do not look at these charges, they just pay bills every month and that is what they count on and hope for). Ninety-nine percent of customers will not do anything about overcharges and with these 1% (the rest of tricked customers ), "skilled and rude customer support representatives will deal (it looks like they are very well-trained to do it and every person will tell you exactly the same, they have only one goal and that is to get money and make people pay them, not to help them).

Another time when I called customer service, they said that since they cannot do anything about past overcharges they would give me current rates, which were much better than what I was paying, and I said okay. When I checked the next bill, my rates to these countries were exactly the same as they were before. I called customer service again and I asked them why they did not change rates as they promised and they told me that they did not promise me anything. And I asked what about these new rates? (I had them written for each country.) And they said that nobody gave me new rates. (The fact that I had written the name of the person who said that did not help, this time it was Nikoleta).

I also tried to call one cell phone number in a little town in Serbia, which does not have good connections. So for three weeks, I was trying to get this person, but I was not able to get connection, not once since time, so I was not able to talk with this person at all. But my next bill had all these calls recorded and they charged me for each of them (and they were hundreds of calls to the same number), and more importantly, they did not charge one or two minutes charges, they charged me 15, 20 or 25 minutes call, which as I said, never went through and I did not make them.

The same has happened in the last bill: I was billed four times for calls with Slovenia and I did not talk with anybody in Slovenia. All these calls were $2 or more and I did not have any other calls over $1. So the biggest charges from the bill were these calls, which I did not make. I guess because I did not have too many calls the last time, they had to make some to get some money! In July I made a single call to Switzerland and was charged for three 45 to 65 minutes calls.

This company is charging more (hundreds of) minutes for the existing calls and is charging for calls that have never been made (but to the same known numbers). These calls that have never been made are recorded at times when we just couldn't make them, and many of them at the same period of time. Let's just say that they charged me for a call on November 2nd at 14:29, which I did not make (55 minutes charge), and then again at 14:34, which also was not made, another 14 minutes, and a few more calls before 15:29, so that way not only that they charged me for all these calls which I did not make that day, but they charged me double, triple or four or five times more for the same period, which they've already charged. That day I could not make any calls with Serbia and I requested from them to refund all charges which they refused to do.

The same happened from 11/11/10 to 11/16/10. All these days I was not able to make any calls and they charged me for hundreds of minutes and hundreds of calls that I did not make! And they refuse to refund these charges as well. So they had this kind of issues that customers could not make calls for some time and I called them a few times to report these problems and they never solved problems or bother to call me back (always promised that somebody will call me back).

Unhelpful and rude (Nada and Nikoleta, the representatives) and/or rude customer service managers (Elona, the manager and another one from cancellation department who did not give me her name) will not do anything about it but to threaten. They are saying that if we don't pay, they will charge us late fees, put back refunds they had already given to me, and sent us to collection agency and bring us to court. I told them that I am not paying unless they are sending me the correct, adjusted invoice. And I am calling them to cancel, and they are telling me that I cannot cancel service before I pay the disputed amount ($205, my usual bills were $40-$60). I guess and hope that is lie as well!

Primo has been overcharging me for months and years. They owe me hundreds of dollars. I was not able to use my phone for days when my mother was in hospital and they did not solve this problem for days but charged me for all these days.

They did harass me by calling me multiple times and asking me to pay these bills. They also threatened me. They were rude during conversation and made me angry. I sent them a letter with request to correct the bill and I have not gotten any response so far. I have written to them to stop calling me but to send letter to me with clear report of charges and refunds and they continue to call me. They also hung up a few times (different people and managers). They were wasting my time by making me to talk with them, yet do not solve any single issue and were not helpful at all.

After many long distance phone bills with non-existent calls being placed in bill, I contacted customer service multiple times and faxed billing disputes, but to no effect. Customer representatives were rude and hung up and could not solve any problems. I have called three times to customer service to disconnect service and they have told me that cancellation service will contact me within 24 hours and none has done that. This is outrageous to try to disconnect the service and Primo Communications customer service reps refused to do and hang up on you.

Primo Communications has overcharged us for the long distance and international calls. We noticed an increase in the total of the last bill so we started to keep a log for our calls. This company is charging more (hundreds of) minutes for the existing calls and is charging for calls that have never been made (but to the same known numbers). These calls that have never been made are recorded at times when we just couldn't make them, been at work or at school. Unhelpful (Ema-representative) and/or rude customer service employees (Alex-manager) will not do anything about it but to threaten. They are saying that if we don't pay, they will charge us late fees. I am not paying unless they are sending me the correct, adjusted invoice. And I am calling right now to cancel our contract.

Primo Communications was my long-distance phone company. For months, I saw that my bill is overcharged, and I was blaming my husband that he is talking to long. Two months ago, I started to monitor our calls; and when the bill came, I saw that I was overcharged. I've called the company, and Ms. ** corrected the problem. I asked her to make a note that I am monitoring the calls.

Last month, the bill was correct. But to my surprise, this month, not only that every single call was overcharged between 20 and 40 minutes plus, but they said that I did not pay the bill last month which was not true, because I sent my check on March 1, 2010 which was cashed by Primo Communications on March 9, 2010.

I called my bank, and I have to pay $3.00 to get the copy of the check to prove that my bill was paid. In regards with the overcharged 180 minutes, the rep said that they don't give any credit. But she did not want to give an explanation for those 180 minutes overcharged. The practice of this company is wrong, and I cannot understand how they can be in business. As of today, March 30, 2010, I cancelled my service with them, and the representative was very rude.

Primo Communications has been our selected long distance carrier for many years. During this service period, we utilized them to complete long distance calls to Canada and Romania. Stating in November 2009, we noticed that the bill had become very high. Upon careful inspection we noted many calls were made on a date and time that no one was home. In some cases, they were repeated calls on the same day for enormous amounts of time at an increased rate. When these charges were disputed, Primo Communications said that the dates and times of the calls were not always accurate. When asked for correct times, they refused to provide this information. Furthermore, they give us the run around when asked for reimbursement.

As of right now, we still did not see any money back from them on the bill. When we disputed those charges, they had the nerve to do an unauthorized debit - ACH-from our checking account - complete fraud- stealing our money. We reached out to Primo Communications to have a correction on this fraud but the customer service rep which was extremely rude and threatening, refused to make any adjustments and would not allow us to speak with their manager Alex-.Primo Communication should be denied the right to operate long distance telephone service within the U.S.

During these difficult economical times, everyone is watching every penny they are spending. The fraud that Primo Communications committed should be brought to the attention of regulating authorities. As of result of this outright theft, we were obligated to change banking relationship and we lost an amount of money far in excess of the reasonable expectations for this service.

I was using Primo for long distance calls to Serbia and Croatia for several months. The bill was getting higher every month and I started timimg our phone calls. Every call we made was doubled and there were many calls that we did not make at the time we were not at home. After contacting their customer service, faxing everything four times, writing a letter and paying for the calls we made, they are still charging us more and more every months and we cancelled their service 10 months ago.

Primo communications has been our long distance telephone service. My wife is from Romania, so she calls home to talk to her family everyday. We use this long distance phone company because they offered a good rate per minute to call to Romania. Several months ago our monthly bill started increasing every month, yet my wife was not increasing the number of calls she was making during those months. Finally last month we took serious notice of our monthly bill to find out why the increase. Primo communications has been charging us for calls that we have not been making literally hundreds of calls over last several months. For example they charge us for making calls to Romania during hours that we are both at work. They charge us for making calls to Romania when we were both on vacation in Romania if you can believe that! Every month they charge us for many calls that we did not make, and we can easily prove this.

This is not computer error, or a mistake. This company is intentionally billing us for calls we did not make to increase the amount of money they receive from us. Please let us send you copies of our bills, and you can easily see that we could not possibly make all the calls they charge us for every month. Again, for example in the months of February, March, April 2009 they charged us for making 7, 8, even 9 calls a day to Romania. This is ridicules, my wife never calls Romania more the 2 times in one day, and most days she only calls once. We can show you example after example were they billed us for calls made at 5:00am-6:00am Romanian time. My wife would never call many times at these hours! There are many obvious reasons why we would not make the calls they are billing us for. Please we need help. We have been paying for hundreds of calls we did not make.

I AM A NEW CLIENT TO THIS COMPANY AND THEY FAILED TO KEEP THE INITIALE RATES I WAS PROMISSED AND ALSO THEY SENT ME A BILL AND ON THE BILL THERE IS ANOTHER'S PERSON NAME,NOT MINE.I CONTACTED THE COMPANY ON 8/30/07 WITH MY COMPLAINS AND THEY SAID THEY'LL FIX THE NAME AND THE RATES, THEY GAVE ME A CREDIT IN THE AMMOUNT OF $16.72.

ON 8/31/07 I CALLED THEM BACK BECAUSE I DECIDED NOT TO STAY WITH A COMPANY THAT MESSES THE FIRST BILL AND THEY TOLD ME IF I CANCEL THE ACCOUNT THEY WILL HAVE ME PAY HIGHER RATE ON THE LAST BILL AND CHARGE ME BACK FOR THE CREDIT THEY GAVE ME.I EXPLAINED THAT I SHOULD HAVE NOT BEEN BILLED THAT AMMOUNT,IF THEY WOULD HAVE KEEP THE RATES THEY PROMISED WHEN I OPENED THE ACCOUNT.

THEY REFUSE TO WORK WITH ME TREATENING TO SEND ME TO COLLECTION FOR THE CREDIT THEY GAVE ME, IF I DON'T STAY WITH THEIR COMPANY . I DON'T EVEN HAVE AN OUTSTANDING BALLANCE AND I PAID OVER THE PHONE YESTERDAY WITH MY CREDIT CARD.