Transaction Clearing

Yet, another nightmare with AT&T. We made some changes to our AT&T Business service plan to save some money in this bad economy — that was the trigger for a "scammer company" to strike. Our first bill was fine, after that we did not look at our bill for five months. This is normal for us and many others. The "scammer companies" know this. That's why they wait one month before they strike. I called AT&T and told them we did not order this service and to take it off. AT&T said they could not because the FCC allows this and AT&T "must" allow them to add their service to anyone's phone bill, charge them any amount they want and then said. We would have to call Transaction Clearing and have them remove the service.

I told AT&T that I tried that and the only options were to leave a message for someone who use their service or to cancel the service. Of course if I choose to cancel we would be charged for six months service that we did not order. That means that if the "scammer company" attached this to one million statements and it is missed, the "scammer company" makes fifteen million dollars per month or more. I called AT&T back and told them this and they called the "scammer company" and found if they hit the "0" over and over again they could get through to someone.

I did this and got through. I talked to the person who answered and she told me they could not take this off our bill. I started getting angry and told her she was going to take this off our bill. She said she would take one month off but that was all. In a more angry voice, I said let me talk to your supervisor. She said there was no one else except her. Then she said she would take off three months. In an even more angry voice I said she was going to take all the charges off and that I was not going to let her get away with her "scam" and that I was going to sue her, her company, AT&T and that I was going to do this through the FCC.

Then she agreed to take all the charges off. But only a part of the charges each billing cycle. I said she could do that but that it was obvious the company she worked for would make a lot of interest money off the holding of other people's money and hung up. I don't know if this nightmare is over yet because the future is not here yet. Everyone at our company has either separated from AT&T or will do so soon. I know now, why so many people I have talked to have left AT&T and gone to alternative phone carriers like Skype and others. I can't help wonder if some of the other carriers are affiants of AT&T and this is a ploy for AT&T to divert to these companies or not. I will soon cancel my AT&T phone service and internet at my home. I hope that if enough people read this and enough people leave AT&T then maybe AT&T will wake up. If this is not part of their plan in the first place.

I believe this complaint to be a rather extensive scam that targets a wide variety of people by transferring false bills to phone service providers, making quite a lot of money in the scamming process. I moved from County Square Drive in Ventura, California exactly 2 years and 2 months ago. During the time that I lived at that address, I was enticed online by offers such as a Free laptop, if only you will complete 5 online offers. Upon filling out the offers, it becomes obvious that some of the offers require filling out credit card information, and some offers appear to be trials with no apparent strings attached, but they end up somehow in the distant future transferring bills to phone company providers. So anyways, I have lived at my new address for 2 years and 2 months now, and when I received my new AT&T phone bill, I was surprised when I found monthly bills for recent services that I never signed up for nor used.

I, of course, called the associated toll free number to find out why I was billed. Upon my questioning the customer service representative for Fetch Unlimited on 6/22/10, I was told that it was an account that was signed up initially through an online site Giftcardchallenge.com, and the associate home address that they had on file was the county square drive location that I lived at 2 years and 2 months ago. I never recently participated in any online offers, and it would be very, very easy to remember if I had done so, and especially if I had used an old living address when filling out an online offer. So the fact that they had a very old address on file, this is proof that this company somehow pulls up old contact information from their computers, and bills people to their phone company service provider, hoping that the phone bills will be paid with no contention of the portion of the bill that is unknown. Seems to me that this must be a regular scam that they pull on people who in the past had been enticed by the online offers, or maybe somehow they obtain contact information from a separate company that runs the online offers for free items. Basically, this company Fetch Unlimited may not even be associated with the online offers I participated in the past, they may just be guilty of falsely billing people for services they never signed up for, using contact information they themselves obtained from a 3rd party.

When people are victimized by this scam, upon the victim calling to complain, the company asks you to confirm that the contact information is correct, or at least that it was a valid address for you at one point and time, then they very easily cancel the bills to anyone who disputes the false bills. My cancellation experience was ridiculously easy when I called. Now, if they had a legal right to bill me, seems like they would have proceeded to seek payment. I would like to see this scam shut down. You can see how easy it would be for a company like this to make a lot of money by simply transferring a bill to a victim's phone service provider. There is little chance they will get caught. Everyone wants to pay their phone bill, so this Fetch Unlimited knows that a very good percentage of people will simply pay the false bill not knowing what to think of it. It is not as difficult of a scam as billing people to their credit cards, nor as immediately obvious, most people would never be very reluctant to simply fill out an online order form asking for a phone number and address, it would not seem as risky as filling out your credit card information online. With this scam, by the time the person gets the phone bill with the false bill included, they will likely not even remember much from years ago when they had participated in the online offer. This leaves the victim confused and not knowing how to handle the situation. Now consider the very easy cancellation of the false bills they transfer to victim's phone service providers. This causes most contending victims to no longer worry much about a false bill that they had already successfully cancelled. This scam only requires a person to fill out an online form including a phone number, an address, and other basic personal information, no immediately obvious red flags here.

I provided the information for the company Transaction Clearing because it was one of the companies listed near the charge on my phone bill. It appears that this company might only be responsible for taking the orders given to them from the Fetch Unlimited, LLC, so it is possible that Fetch Unlimited, LLC is solely responsible for transferring the false orders to Transaction Clearing, who then transfers the bills to phone service providers. This could be a purposely organized partnership, so as to disassociate the falsely order creating entity, with the billing entity, thus making it difficult to point the finger at any one organization. Oh, yeah, when I called to dispute the false bill, the only incorrect personal information in their system was my mother's maiden name. You can see how they purposely include one false fact to a person's contact information would allow them to point to the possibility that may be a solo criminal impersonator was responsible for filling out a form online. But this makes no sense whatsoever, why would a solo operating criminal impersonator do such a thing? There is no money to be made by a solo operating scam artist whatsoever. Fetch Unlimited provides an E-Fax service. There is no money to be made if a solo impersonator were to falsely sign up someone else for their E-Fax service.

Obviously, this company Fetch Unlimited, LLC, could indeed have actually contracted someone to make false online orders, using contact information that they obtained somehow, or already had in their computers. This would allow them to actually have an appearing legit online order placed recently. This actually makes the most sense if they wanted to "cover all of their tracks." All I know is that I have not participated in any enticing online offers in years, none whatsoever, and now the recent false billing to my phone company provider, which simply added completely false service fees to my phone bill, and the fact that the only company who stands to make any money with this scam is Fetch Unlimited and Transaction Clearing (maybe unknowingly by transferring the false bills.) There is little risk to them in most cases as a result of it being sort of difficult for victims to figure out what was going on. I just don't understand why a reputable phone company like AT&T would allow the transferring of a bill from a 3rd party company. AT&T and other phone service providers should make it standard that the attachment of 3rd party bills to your phone bill is, by default, not allowed unless you call AT&T to request approval of the 3rd party billing. This is an obvious solution. Thanks for reviewing my complaint.

A $14.95 monthly charge suddenly appeared on my AT&T April invoice Transaction Clearing, LLC. When I called their number at 1877-257-2455, I was told that the service was some sort of online service that would report celebrity activities. This is something that I have not use for and I did not order. When asked who ordered it, I was told that a Dave C. ordered it. We have no Dave C. nor did we ever speak to a Dave C. I found out later that his email address is ****. I am appalled that AT&T will allow just anyone to authorize billing for a service without the owner's consent. This must be stopped!

Charges appeared on my phone bill. I called them right away and canceled the charges. I received the confirmation number as well as a refund number. Today is Feb 16th and I have not received the money back. The company is refusing to tell me what I signed up for and it refusing to admit any type of fraud. I want this company not to be able to do business, they provide no service but charge for service.

I received my bill from AT&T last month with a charge from Transaction Clearing, LLC, on behalf on BILLWITHUS, INC. After researching this charge, I called AT&T to complain about the charge after finding out it was a bogus "cramming" scheme, and hoping that AT&T would recognize this and this would be the end of it. First they told me that I would have to contact this 3rd party company, which I had to no avail.

After much insistence on my part, they only offer to "flag" that charge and have it reviewed by their billing dept. I did not pay that charge (I did pay the rest of my bill). This month's bill shows the pending charge, now overdue. So AT&T has not done anything to resolve this at this point. I am planning on calling again *DURING NORMAL BUSINESS HOURS*, so that I can try to find someone that can help.

At this point, there is an overdue balance on my AT&T bill for the amount of the bogus charge, and I am afraid it will end up in my credit report if AT&T does not resolve this soon.

On my May 15 telephone bill, I was charged $8.43 for an undefined service. The charge appeared under the page heading Operator Service Provider. As far as I can tell, the charge was for a call to "Low Cost Billing" for a carrier called "Transaction Clearing." No contact information or call details were provided. On my June 15 bill, a charge of $8.23 was again added with no clarifying details. Apparently, this is a "service" that someone signed up for through a website. We are very careful about anything that we look at, register for, etc.