ZPDI: Zero Plus Dialing

Unauthorized charges on my AT&T bill - My son called me collect from Virginia Beach County Jail twice. Since then I have been charged on my phone bill. I have not signed up for anything from this company. I have called many times and they refused to stop this erroneous account. What should I do?

I received my phone bill from AT&T and there was a charge on it from ZPDI for $58.35 that was never authorized. I tried calling AT&T to discuss but their offices were closed, naturally. I will contact AT&T tomorrow to find out what they intend to do about this.

I am on disability and I only get a SSI check on the first of the month. I can't pay a $133.00 dated on Feb 2 bill date. The two calls which were made at the beginning of Jan (the 6 and 7th) total $133.52. I keep calling but asking for a supervisor because I keep having problems with understanding what they are trying to tell me.

ZPDI only credited my bill only $50.00. I wouldn't have accepted the collect calls because I thought I had a toll free number connected to my phone. My son had to call collect to tell me that the toll free number isn't working anymore. If I had my toll free number which I got just for the purpose of giving it to my son so that he can call me while he's in Afghanistan so I wouldn't have to go through what I'm going through now. I never accepted any collect calls and I won't start now by accepting them. Because I would give my son the toll free number because it was a lot cheaper and I never had my phone disconnected for non-payment of a bill.

I am a very dissatisfied customer and I am very angry. So please help me by taking these charges off and taking care of the bill. It won't be any collect calls accepted by me or anyone in my household. Please let me know something whether it's going to be by phone or mail. I have a hearing problem that's why I couldn't understand them, you have to be very clear and look at me (face to face). I just want my bill taken care of.

I dialed a mobile phone number of Miami from Newark international airport and I was told by the operator that it costs $1 for 5 minutes but later when I checked my debit card statement, I found out that I was charged $29.92 for a seven minute call. These people are cheaters.

I am writing to file a complaint against Legacy LD International, Inc., Cypress, CA, a.k.a. Zero Plus Dialing, Inc. (800-553-4218), Legacy Long Distance, Legacy LD, Inc., Legacy Long Distance International, Inc., and Legacy Billing Services for the exorbitant charges attached to my AT&T invoice.

On July 12, 2011, I received two telephone calls which were prefaced with an automated voice asking if I would accept a telephone call from an individual known to me. I was told to press a numerical number in order to accept the call. The first call I received was never connected to my calling party; the line disconnected. The second call, six minutes later, was handled in exactly the same manner as the first telephone call except we were successfully connected. This call lasted less than 5 minutes. There was not, at any time either before or after either of these calls, an option to determine what, if any, cost was involved in the use of Legacy's services. In fact, Legacy's name was never mentioned by the automated operator, therefore my understanding of the telephone call was only that it was from a public telephone and handled, assumedly, by my AT&T carrier.

Several weeks later, I received my carrier's statement (AT&T, billing date 9/28/11) and was quite surprised to find Legacy's invoice attached. It quickly became evident AT&T not only would not reverse the charges but would continually refer me to Legacy. Having absolutely no knowledge of this company, I searched for information about them on the internet. After finally locating the company's record on the website of the Better Business of Los Angeles, I found complaints that exactly matched mine. I also determined that literally hundreds of people have filed complaints (probably thousands that did not file complaints) with the BBB. As of 10/3/11, 252, BBB complaints had been closed in the last 3 years with 48 closed in the last 12 months. The "settlement rationale" in Legacy's responses to these complaints has been repeated, word for word, in nearly every complaint. There are legitimate complaints spread across the internet on various websites with probably thousands of individuals that have been horrendously overcharged for telephone calls not only intrastate but interstate as well.

The Better Business Bureau summarizes Legacy's "F" status by stating: "Complainants allege the company charges exorbitant fees for collect calls made from payphones. Customers complain that when accepting collect calls placed through the company, no pre-amble or other disclosures were made to advise them of the charges that would be imposed upon acceptance. Some complainants allege that charges which appear on their regular service bill in connection with these calls are up to 5 times the amount of their regular phone service. Some customers complain that calls placed from payphones that were not collect calls, are billed as collect calls and added to their regular phone service bill. The company resolved a few complaints by not processing charges.

The charges I incurred are as follows: A 5-minute charge which was never completed: $ 18.44; A 5-minute charge which didn't last 5 minutes: $ 18.44; State Infrastructure Maintenance Fee: $ .21; State Additional Charges: $ .04; Illinois Taxes: $ 2.89; Municipal Telecommunications Tax: $ 2.21; Regulatory Compliance Fee: $ 1.95; Legacy LD Intl. Bill Statement Fee: $ 2.49; Total Charges for essentially one telephone call, less than 5 minutes in length, from less than 3 miles from my home: $ 46.67. That charge adds up to over $9.33 per minute!

Obviously, I could give you links to many websites filled with complaints about this company but it is just as easy for you to find them by using the search engine of your choice using either their telephone number or company name. **. I am fully aware of the 1996 Telecommunications Act but once again the public is being harmed by the failure of not only the Federal Government but the individual states as well, by not closing loopholes that are being flagrantly violated.

A charge of $41.61 for a three-minute collect call on 9/17/11 was applied to my home phone. A call was made from California to Washington from **. When I contacted ZPDI, I was told that no adjustment would be made.

While driving from my home in Illinois to Michigan, I made a collect call from inside a gas station in Michigan to my home phone in Illinois because I didn't have a cellphone. The first call was 5 minutes, just to tell my family I arrived safely at my destination. The second call took place a few days later from the same gas station pay phone. It was seven minutes long. I called my family again to let them know that I was driving home. A month later when I received my phone bill, I saw charges of $43.92 for the five-minute call and $54.90 for the 7-minute call from a company called ZPDI.

My daughter, after catching the last flight from Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale on Bahamas Air at arrival, made 3 collect calls from Fort Lauderdale to Rock Hill, SC. I found out one month later, when they showed up on my local phone bill. The charge was $29.94 for each call of minimum 5 minutes each, plus $15.92 in carrier fees. The total was $105.74.

I called the number on my bill and contacted Charles ** who said that his supervisor would allow a one-time courtesy deduction of $35.92. The total for 3 calls of less than 3 minutes each was $69.82, so each call was $23.27 or about $8.00 per min. This is outrageous. These people can get away with charging the public these rates and don't seem to be accountable to anyone.

My wife's nephew is incarcerated in Norman, OK. He made 4 collect calls to us. Three of the calls were for 30 minutes at a charge of $124.96 each and a five minute call for $29.94 for a total of $404.82. Then, they billed an additional $64.28 for service and carrier fees, for a grand total of $469.10 for 95 minutes of usage. It is a total scam, the amount they are charging.

I refuse to pay this amount. I will be contacting my phone carrier and disputing the bill. If they are going to rip people off for overcharging for the service, it should be made perfectly clear up-front what their charges are before you use the service. If they had been honest on the first call and stated charges that would have been a very short call and the last call to be accepted.

The only reason I chose 1 star above is, this form would not go through without it. This is a bogus company! I was charged $43.92 for a collect call made from South Africa to my home phone. We do not use our landline for long distance. No one was home on the day the bogus call was made. I called this company 3 times, spoke to Tom **, Eric **, and Jason. Jason hung up on me. I did not accept this call, it was impossible for this call to be accepted. I refuse to pay this charge. This company has a list of complaints against them a mile long.

There is a collect call on my phone bill that I wanted to dispute. When I called the number for Zero Plus Dialing, the number had been disconnected.

I looked at my AT&T bill and noticed that there was a charge of $40.89 from something called ZPDI. I looked at the last page and it gave a detail of that charge. It says that I received a collect call from Belgium on 6/9/11 at 6:37 a.m.!!! For this, I was charged $34.97 plus various other charges for a total of $40.89.

I know very well that I did not receive a phone call at that time of the morning on any day. I would remember that!

I called AT&T and I must admit that I put the poor lady at the other end of the line through hell for something that was not her fault. I had to vent to someone. She told me that she would place that portion of the bill on dispute and that we would not have to pay it on this month's bill, but that if ZPDI refused the charge back, we would have to pay it anyway.

I told her that if they charge me again for it, I would call the local radio talk show (very popular here) and let them know what happened and that people should not use them. I also said that I will print up fliers telling what happened and telling people that they should not use AT&T.

On the evening of May 6, 2011, my husband went to 2 pay phones attempting to contact me. The first phone he went to was located at 7015 SE Us Highway 301 Hawthorne, FL 32640 . He put his money in and got an all circuits are busy repeatedly. He then went to 6825 SE 221st St. Hawthorne, FL 32640 (352-481-9272) and the same thing. At this address, this is where my husband spoke to a representative at your office and explained that the phones were giving him a problem after putting his money in. He explained to her that he had put the money in the phone and the phone kept giving the all circuits busy message. She asked what number he was trying to call, he gave the number and she came back a few seconds and asked for his name. Meanwhile, she contacted me and asked if I would accept a collect call.

I told her yes; however, she never explained to me what my husband told her. In conversation with my husband when he got home, I found out what had happened. She knew he was having problems and that the money was put in the machine. I feel that we should not have to pay based on the fact that she put it upon herself to make the collect call and never notified my husband that she was indeed placing a collect call. I spoke to George ID# ** and Luis ** ID# ** and he stated they would only give a credit to my bill for $7.14. I told him it was not our fault their phones were not working properly. He told me that it was the companies that own the phones' fault. I told him Legacy, who they work for, was listed for 3 phones that my husband tried to use. He told me it was not their problem and again would only give a credit of $7.14.

I received a bill for $22.15 for a phone call that was never explained would be a collect call and feel that the company has no right to do this, and I should not have to pay the full amount for something that should have been explained to my husband. He would have never made the call if he knew it was going to be collect.

I called my home number collect from Charlotte, NC. One call was six minutes and the other three minutes. The charges to my phone bill were $32.52 and $28.05. This is an outrageous overcharge.

My husband placed a 2-minute collect call to tell me his phone had died and where he was. I was charged $27.17 for two minutes. That's highway robbery.

My husband was traveling from NC to Atlanta one night and called me collect as his calling card would not work. He does not have a cell phone. I accepted the call when I heard his name. By doing so immediately, apparently bypassed the recorded message telling me of the exorbitant rate we would be charged for the call! Wouldn't you do the same if it was your spouse or child on the road, far from home and you got a collect call? We received our phone bill from AT&T, who takes no responsibility other than allowing the charge to go on their bill and allowing it to become an issue with your bill if you dispute it, and included on the bill was a $55.47 charge for a 6-minute call! What happened to the days of collect calls being $7 or so? This price is gouging, perhaps at its worst! Destiny told me that when my husband placed the call, he should have dialed "0" for the operator who would have told him the rates for this phone call. I guess the operator didn't get that part of their training manual because that didn't happen!

This company operates a phone scam. They charged my mother $24.24 for a non-existent collect call. While Verizon kindly removed it from her bill, I think it's important for people to realize that this scam exists.

This company charges for collect calls in the range of up to $10.00 a minute and also still charges you when you refuse the calls. When you call then to try to solve the problem,they refuse to even speak to you. The only way to avoid this company is to refuse all collect calls which makes the use of this emergency service too costly to use.

Something needs to be done to regulate such companies so when family is is trouble we will be able to accept their calls for help. This is a illegal service when they can charge you whatever they want as soon as they get your number. And then you can get your own phone shut off from the charges they make.

I was charged on my home phone line for collect calls which I did not accept and my answering machine picked up. I called my local carrier which is Windstream and they told me that I would have to call Zero Plus. I called Zero Plus and spoke with Frank, and he said that they would credit me, confirmation number **.

I called Windstream, and they then informed me that I needed the exact amount of how much Zero Plus would credit me, which at that time, I was informed that I would be charged a late fee if I did not pay the $70.07 that Zero Plus charges. After arguing with the Windstream representative, they sent me to bill/credit Lisa. She informed me that I would not be charged late fees but needed to know the exact amount if they are going to credit me State and County Taxes.

I called Zero Plus back and spoke with a lady (did not get her name) who argued with me and then hung up on me. I called Zero Plus back and spoke with Josh. I never did get to the bottom of this mess except that I would be credited $66.63 (which excludes that State and County Taxes). When speaking with the Windstream representatives, they said that the FCC allows billing like this. Really? How nice!

My son was involved in an accident in early February. He had to make a collect call to me from Jackson, TN. The duration of the call was 3 minutes. On my phone bill I received a charge from ZPDI for $31.62. I had no clue that the collect call was even going through a third party. This has to be a scam. Luckily, my home phone provider was able to provide me with a one-time adjustment. If this happens to you, and even though your phone provider may make an adjustment, please contact the number provided on your phone bill and have them block your phone from receiving these types of calls

I received a $26.40 phone charge for a 3-minute call on my AT&T bill from a company called Zero Plus Dialing. It was a call I made at BART in San Francisco, because my cell phone battery was dead and I had no change to call my ride that was picking me up. This is absurd. I think the call was actually 1 minute; either way, this is a total scam.

I received a bill for $73.60 for 2 collect calls from Charlotte Airport to my home. On neither call could I hear the caller. 1 call lasted 42 seconds the other 51 seconds. This is robbery! I reported to ZPDI that I could not hear the calls and they refuse to give me a credit. I am now reporting this to Verizon and the Board of Public Utilities.

Our daughter called collect from a hospital on November 4, using dialing instructions on the back of an expired calling card given to her by a nurse. A 20-minute call was billed by Zero Plus Dialing Inc. at $98.27 plus $14.56 additional fees for a total of $112.83 (over $5 per minute). Our daughter had no idea of the outrageous cost she was incurring on our account. When my husband called ZPDI, Jesse ** did agree to credit us with $40 for the call but it is still unfair to consumers to charge such a high rate with no warning.

I forwarded an email to you today about my experience with ZPDI. I wonder if you can provide me with contact information so I can either email or phone them?

I was billed for $33.93 on AT &T bill. It was for 1 call of 5 minutes. I was not told it would be this much. It is ridiculous. I want it reduced. Yhis should be illegal. They will not answer phone or call back to explain. Their phone mailbox is full and they will not accept messages.I should have been told what call would cost per minute in advance, I would not have done so if I were told $7 per minute.

I receive my phone bill yesterday. To my shock, there was a charge from (ZPDI) of $168.68 for a total of 24 minutes! These calls where from a friend in a halfway house in St. Louis! I'm disabled, 64-year-old male with a severe heart condition, on oxygen and in very ball health! Seeing this bill almost sent me to the hospital! I have contacted the F.T.C, the Missouri Attorney General's office, and the Department of Commerce of Missouri to file a complaint with them! My F.T.C complaint no. is **! My phone company has file a dispute on this charge and advised me not to pay it! One gentleman I spoke with told me that this would not result in my phone service being shut off. I spoke with a second person that said it might cause a problem!

I live 50 miles from the closest town or hospital, my cell phone does not work in my area! If I lose my phone with my poor health, this could be a fatal issue for me! I spoke with the man, a ZPDI listed above who told me that I must pay in full because it was an operator assisted call, which in fact I never spoke with a live person, but a computer! My brother has found hundreds of complaints about this company. In fact, there is even a class action suit against their practices! I would appreciate any help you could provide! I am on a fixed income and I can't afford a scam like this!

I received a collect call that was reported as 6 minutes and my phone bill presented me with a $45.00 charge. The call was from Nashua, NH to my home. This charge amount is outrageous and something needs to be done.

I did not use a ZPDI Zero Plus Dialing Service from my home, but I received a charge on my home phone for such a charge. This should be illegal.

I recieved a ZPDI Charge on the behalf of Custom Teleconnect on my phone from another phone number in Omaha. I don't know or recognize the number or know the person whose number it is. I feel I shouldn't have to pay this bill and I want to know how did I get charged for a service I didn't authorize. $22.04, I know it's not much, but I want to know how did I get charged and what is this service? Thank you.

When the collect calls were made from the pay phone, it was stated the calls were $0.10 a minute for 10 minutes or longer. I got my bill for 91 minutes. I was billed $192.55. I called and talked to Comus Service, and they even said it was confusing. I will pay the $0.10 a min, but I will not pay the $192.55.

I got a bill from Zero Plus collect calls on 7/22 for 5 minutes at 7:48 am. We leave for work between 7 and 7:30 each day and no one else resides in our home. They billed us for a collect call that no one could have accepted. It was for 5 minutes for a total charge of $28.19. When you try to call to dispute the bill, conveniently no rep is available and they do not return your voicemail request to call you back. My carrier (Windstream) says they can do nothing about this. I will have to deal directly with Legacy. Could someone tell me how you are supposed to do this if no one answers or returns your call as requested?

I got my phone bill and it was a collect call on my bill for $16.10. Called this company and got two of the nastier people you ever wanted to talk to . The one name was Kathy employee # **. I told them that at the time of this call there is no one in my home. I do not get off until 5:00 PM. The call came in @ 4:05 PM. She would not help. People say that there are not jobs out here. Get rid of those with bad attitudes.

On June 23, 2010, I received a collect call from a hospital in California when a family member died. According to the bill, the call was operator-assisted and daytime rate, although it was 10 pm at night. The charge was $20.35 for four minutes plus the following additional charges: $2.87 for Federal Universal Service Fund, $3.99 for USF Carrier Admin Fee, $2.99 for Regulatory Compliance Fee, $2.99 for CustomTeleconnect LEC Bill Fee, and $1.53 in taxes and fees on "Basic Services". The total cost for that 4-minute call was $34.72 - more than my entire monthly bill.

When I tried calling ZPDI, I was instructed to leave a message but then was immediately told that the mailbox was full and unable to take additional messages. I then tried calling Custom Teleconnect and had the exact same series of messages. I was unable to reach a human being. Next, I tried calling my local carrier, Frontier, and they stated that they were only passing through the charges on behalf of ZPDI.

These are usurious rates and need to be addressed. While I can afford to pay this bill, I know that many others cannot. The fact that this company charges these excessive rates, especially from phones located in places such as hospitals, is outrageous.

On June 30, 2010, I was in the Charlotte, NC airport, en route home from an overseas trip. I used one of the pay phones in the airport to call my wife and tell her the number of the flight that I was taking to Richmond, so that she could meet me there. In order to learn the charges, I was required to enter the number of the telephone to which I was making the call, my home phone, which service is now provided by Cox Communications.

After entering the telephone number, I was advised to punch 1 or 2 or * or some other button in order to learn the cost of the call. I did that, but instead of being connected to an operator or a recording and finding out the cost, I was immediately connected to my home phone. I spent about 30 seconds explaining this situation to my wife and informing her about my flight. I was prepared to put the required amount of money into the telephone, provided the cost was not exorbitant but I never got that opportunity.

Today, I received my bill from Cox Communications for the services it is currently providing, which includes Internet access, cable TV and telephone service. In addition to the normal Cox charges, the bill included a charge for $26.96 for the phone call I made from Charlotte. However, it was not a Cox charge, but rather one that Cox was collecting for ZPDI, which apparently is the telephone company in charge of the Charlotte pay phone. I called ZPDI and explained to an agent named Kevin ** that the charge was not legitimate, that I had not been notified as advertised in advance of my call and that no one but an ** would have continued to make such a call when notified that the charge would be $26.96 or anything even close to that amount.

I explained the circumstances to him and he seemed to understand. He checked with his supervisors and was told that he could reduce the charge by some $8. I told him that I was not prepared to pay even 8 cents because the charges are fraudulent. They were made without my consent and under false pretenses, that being their failure to comply with their announced intention to inform me of the charges prior to connecting me to my home telephone. I told him that I felt comfortable with my stance in a court of law and that I would be happy to wait for a court summons, which would allow me to present my case to a hopefully logical judge.

There being nothing else he could do or at least said he could do, we hung up. I then called Cox Communications customer service and spoke to an agent who would only identify herself as Cheryl. I explained my situation to her and asked her if she could look into having this false charge taken off of my bill. Rather than investigate, she chose to embark on a litany about how Cox was only "providing a service" for ZPDI. That Cox had no provisions in effect for eliminating such charges and that I would have to call ZPDI about it.

To my way of thinking, this would be the same situation if Walmart were to prevent me from buying anything at their store until I paid them a ridiculous fee that another grocer had asked them to collect for them. I told the Cox agent that I am not going to allow myself to be a target for such extortion as ZPDI is attempting and that I would be paying my bill, minus this illegitimate charge. I also told her that if any ensuing bills from Cox contained any charges whatsoever connected to this ZPDI charge, I would terminate all services with Cox immediately.

I am prepared to do this and I would like to alert anyone who is considering contracting services from Cox to be prepared to find charges from a 3rd party such as this on their bills and to find that the Cox agents can only advise them to contact the bogus biller in order to have the unexpected charges eliminated. This is not the American way of doing business and I want to share this experience with anyone who may be listening.

I recently called the Bahamas, thinking I would be charged for the calls by my long distance carrier. Instead, I was charged by ZPDI and my local telephone carrier, AT&T, allowed the company to place the charges on the AT&T bill! Outrageous! When I spoke with ZPDI, they refused to assist me stating that I had entered the access number, which in fact was simply the telephone number I was dialing. I then called AT&T, they said they will research the matter, but can't make any guarantees. I feel like I have been fleeced! I was charged $111.52 for 4 calls to the Bahamas at an average of $2.72 per minute!

There is no answer. We do not use the hard line and never accept collect calls. This is a bogus charge and I cannot connect to anyone to have it reversed. It's ridiculous to have AT&T helping this fraudulent company charge my account $15.98 charge for nothing received

We received numerous charges on our regular phone bill by an unauthorized party (ZPDI on behalf of Legacy) for unauthorized and supposedly answered collect calls. On June 6th, 2010, there were 7 collect calls placed to my home and supposedly by a live operator 3 of the times, and again supposedly these "live" calls were accepted by some imaginary person who only talked for 1 minute at the rate of 25.25 each time only to accept another call exactly 3 minutes later and again only speak for 1 minute and then accept another call exactly 3 minutes later and speak for 1 minute.

Then accept another collect call that was not live operator dialed and talk for 10 minutes, and then again 3 minutes later accept another non-operator call and talk for 1 minute, and again 3 minutes later accept another non-operator call and speak for 1 minute. No one was home to take any of these calls. My answering machine showed that these calls were logged onto it and the call that was supposedly accepted and lasted 10 minutes was a blank message on my machine.

I called to dispute the charges and so far I am not really getting any type of assistance. I faxed ZPDI a statement saying that I dispute these charges and that I will not pay for calls that were never accepted by me or any member of my household and demanded that they remove these charges from my bill. I also had them blocked from being able to place any further charges on my phone bill. We will see what the result is. I will not pay this bill. I will continue to call, fax and write them until they fix this. I have also used this website to contact the President, members of Congress and my State Reps to complain about ZPDI and their shady practices. I am a Mom and that money is part of my grocery budget, so they are stealing for my babies, and I will not allow that to happen! They erroneously charged us $120.00 for collect calls that we did not accept.

We had an additional charge on our AT&T phone bill from Zero Plus Dialing for charges from Legacy LD Intl, Inc. It said it was for 3 minutes and was from some phone number we never even heard of from the Los Angeles area. They charged us $15 for it even though we never accepted it. We never accept collect calls and certainly never accepted this one. Our answering machine must have gotten it because we frequently do not answer the phone, especially during dinner time.

Needless to say, we called AT&T to dispute the charge. They checked the phone number that dialed us and that we were being charged for, and they said it was a fax machine. We also looked online and the phone number was unlisted. AT&T told us to call Zero Plus Dialing/Custom Teleconnect to dispute the charge. We called them and were put on hold for 15 minutes. When we finally spoke to someone and told them we never heard of the number and that the number that dialed us can't even be found online, the woman promptly hung up on us. So, we called back AT&T and told them what happened. They dismissed the charge from our bill, but still referred it back to Zero Plus Dialing. If I ever hear from them (which, if they're smart, they won't demand payment), I will be contacting the FTC and Better Business Bureau. I refuse to pay for something I never requested.

I received my phone bill from ACN for May 19th billing period with a $48.03 collect call for 15 minutes from Leesburg, VA on March 22nd, 2010 at 18:53. I asked the other people in the house if they had accepted any collect calls from Leesburg, VA and they said no. We don't know anyone from there. I phoned the customer service department at ACN and was told that I should contact ZPDI, which I did on June 2nd at 17:25 and spoke with Alex who was very rude and simply said they don't refund charges. I told him he would be hearing from ACN. My wife then phoned ACN customer service on May 31st and spoke with Kathrine who said she would look into it and get back to us.

It is now June 29th 2010 and I phoned Kathrine back to ask if she had resolved the problem with ZPDI and she said that it has not been resolved, but she will get back to me within the week. I refuse to pay for something I did not authorize, but it seems that my phone company isn't doing a lot for me. As stated in one of your earlier complaints about ZPDI, our phone companies are being used as collection agencies for this scam. I refused to pay the $48.03 on the May 19th bill so now I'm being charged a late fee of $5.00 plus extra taxes on my June 19th bill and will continue to be charged late fees and extra charges until ACN resolves the matter. Their suggestion was to just pay the bill in its entirety and they would look into it. But they would have just ignored it and I would have been stuck with the bill. That isn't going to happen.

I called about my bill being high and was told I have a third-party billing charges from ZPDI. I told them I did not accept any collect calls from or through this service. They refused to remove charges of $226.19 and $247.45. I was told they are from a correctional institute. I called ZPDI, and they refused to remove the charges and said I have to pay them.

I refused to pay them, and they said I had to pay the charges. I told them I disputed them with Verizon and that I am filing a complaint. This is a financial burden put upon me by another party that I did not authorize or make the calls. If I don't pay them, they will be placed as a collection against me.

On the June bill from my local phone company Verizon, there was a charge of $24.56 that is for a collect call billed by ZPDI for NCIC. I have called Verizon on June 22,2010 at around 8:00 pm, and the customer support refused to waive the charges saying that such companies are protected by equal rights law and asked me to call the number listed on the bill. I was redirected automatically from ZPDI site to NCIC and the woman who answered told me that I have accepted the call and spoke for 4 minutes.

When I said that my wife took the call thinking it to be an emergency from our 12 yr old son who was out at that time, as there was a lot of static and couldn't make out what the automated voice at the other end was. She hung-up immediately after realizing it to be a spam call - in less than 10 seconds. The NCIC person said that they charge for 4 minutes if the customer picked up the call and refused to do anything about it. I got the above address from her insisting that I want to register a complaint. I am surprised that this has been going on for a while by searching the web and the companies doing such large scale scams are not penalized by the government or FCC. Whatever happened to the consumer protection?

I have this on my phone bill, and have never signed up for this service. It is $49.95.

We were charged $18.75 for a 5-minute long distance call from a third-party on May 22, 2010. ZPDI told us that we authorized the phone call for a man named Jessie **. We do not have any knowledge of anyone by that name. We did not answer the phone that morning but did have a strange message on our answering machine. It was a conversation between someone who said his name was Jessie ** trying to get authorization to charge his third-party call from a payphone to our number. The representative approved it and it was on our answering machine. ZPDI customer service was very rude when I called to tell them we did not authorize and that we don't know a Jesse **. She said we did authorize it but that we could dispute the bill by faxing a letter to them. Hours of my time were wasted writing letters, making phone calls and waiting on hold trying to get the charges dropped.

My husband placed a collect call to our house in the US from London but the operator received the answer machine. She indicated to him that she was unable to reach anyone to accept the call. Several weeks later, we received a bill from our local carrier including $71.57 charge from ZeroPlus Dialing for this erroneous call. I contacted their customer service department and spoke with the service manager, David, who was extremely nasty and unhelpful. He started what they call an "investigation" on the call. I called every week to verify the status only to be told that I had to wait 3 full weeks for an answer. The last time I called, a new rep. informed me that the "investigation" was denied. They found that the call lasted 30 seconds and that they were charging for it. This call never went through because there was no one home to accept the charges. The operator didn't leave a message. As a matter of fact, the call never registered on the answer machine or caller ID.

My son called collect from a payphone and a $19.96 charge appeared on the phone bill. The call lasted only 3 minutes and I will be filing a former complaint with the FCC next week. I want Verizon to be held liable for the unauthorized charges that have appeared on our phone bill for months and credit our account for months of unauthorized charges from this company and two other companies that I will be completing forms against with the FCC next week as well. With the unauthorized charges, our mortgage payments had to be late due to the outrageous phone bills.

Zero Plus Dialing is a huge scam. I have a mentally disabled brother that lives in Tacoma Washington. He has a bad habit of calling me collect on a pay phone from the group home I never accept his calls. Starting in our April bill from AT&T, I was billed $145.80 for these collect calls. In May, I was billed $268.77 for these collect calls. Again, I have never accepted the calls. All of these calls are for three minutes and over $30 a call plus extra fees. I called Zero Pus Dialing in April and told them the situation. They said I must have accepted the calls or I would of not been billed.

I asked about the calls as when they come in, the call goes to the answering machine and states press 1 to accept and 3 to not accept. I asked if from doing nothing if that was the reason I was being charged. He said he did not know. If that is the case, this is a huge scam. If I am not home, I am being charged because the answering machine is picking up the call. I refused to pay the bills and he would only credit my account for $29.40. I called AT&T and they would only credit my account $29. So far, I am being billed $414.57. I called my brother and asked him to not call me collect any longer until this is resolved. This is a scam. AT&T is allowing this scam. They are being a third party biller for Zero Plus Dialing. This is outrageous. I am writing and calling the California Public Utilities and the FCC to report Zero Plus Dialing to see what can be done about this scam

We received an additional charge on our phone bill from Zero Plus Dialing for charges from Legacy LD International, Inc. The total charge for 5 minutes was $34.51, a collect call that we never even answered. Now I realize that the answering machine must have picked up because we are in the habit of not answering calls we do not recognize. My phone company said I had to pay it and then dispute the charges with Legacy. So that's what I intend to do. They do not get my money! Having to pay $34.51 for a phone call we did not accept. We never talked to anyone nor do we know anyone who would have called. We never accepted this collect call!

I was billed $23.26 for a 3 minute collect call from a payphone which I did not authorize and was not even answered. It is ridiculous. I called and complained about it, but I can't even reason out with them. How can the FCC allow this to happen? Is this legal?

I received a collect call from my sister who was in jail. I refused the charges. She called two more times that evening and I never picked up the phone. I was charged for all three calls. When I called the company to dispute the employee informed me that I had to pay the charges because I has accepted them. This if total fraud. I never even picked up the phone. The employee was very rude and would not transfer my to a supervisor when I requested to be transferred. I cannot believe a company with this many complaints can still stay in business. I am very upset with this company and can't believe they are getting away with this.

I called ZPDI to dispute a charge of $14.16 on my local phone bill for a supposed collect call of three minutes. I was able to figure out what call was referred to--a collect call that came in to my answering machine in which the computer voice did not identify the caller, so I did not pick up the phone. The ZPDI rep, Martin, told me my answering machine had "accepted" the charges by answering the call, and I therefore had to pay them! I demanded to speak to his supervisor and he told me his supervisor would just tell me the same thing.

I demanded it again and he repeated this. Then he offered to refund 30% of the fee. Since the charge was bogus, I said absolutely not. I wanted the whole amount credited. He finally put me on hold for the supervisor, and 10 minutes later, he relayed that the supervisor said he could refund the money. He then offered to block all collect calls on my line. That seemed crazy, but I agreed so I'd never have to deal with this again. He said the charges would be refunded within two billing cycles.

Someone unbeknownst to me, used my elderly mother's home phone to make an unauthorized sex call ($40.00) to a service operated by ZPDI. I contacted the company twice and asked them to remove the charges for the fraudulent charges. They were adamant that the charges would have to be paid, regardless of the criminal nature of the call. These illegal charges resulted in $40.00 in charges and the inconvenience of me having to disconnect my mother's phone.

Invalid phone charges of almost $150 billed by Zero Plus Dialing, Inc. for NCIC, Teleconnect, Int'l Satellite Comm and Legacy LD Int'l, Inc. I have no knowledge of these calls being made or received. I am the only one living at my residence and I did not make or receive these calls. I have been getting threats to disconnect my phone service and have spent hours on the phone, mostly on on hold with Zero Plus and my phone service, AT&T.

I made a quick (less than 3 min) collect call to my home from a phone booth less than 30 miles away. The charge was over $20. Not a lot of money compared to some of the other complaints I see here at this site, but how do they charge this much?!

I was admitted to a hospital on February 6, 2010 and the only way I knew that I could make a phone call was on a pay phone. I had no cash because everything was collected from me when I was admitted to the hospital, so I had to make collect calls. It was in the same area code (609) and I had 13 calls that cost $196.53.

I will pay the bill but this is highway robbery. The person I spoke to at ZPDI said I should be glad I had a phone that I could make a call on. I was glad to have a phone to call on but there should have been some prices posted. I think I should have some of this bill refunded. And I think the FCC should get involoved with matters like these

I looked at my local phone bill only to see there was a collect call charged in the amount to $23.61. No one in my household authorized it and they cannot provide me proof of the authorization. They expect me to pay anyways. I am furious to think that anyone can get your home phone number and do this unless you have collect calls blocked. I now have that feature blocked.

A friend of mine in Detroit phoned me a few times (until I got my first bill) using 1-800-call-ATT (advertised as free for you, cheap for them). These bills appeared on my Telus account from ZPDI, charging me over $7 for the connection and over a $1 per minute for the call. Obviously no truth in advertising? So far I haven't paid this portion of my bills but neither Telus nor ATT is helpful as regards to the situation.

I opened my phone bill today expecting to see my usual rate. Instead, I find a $37.44 charge for a 3-minute collect call. According to the bill, the call was placed on 1-12-10 at 8:52 am from Montrose, IL. I wasn't even at home to answer the phone that morning let alone accept a collect call. I can verify my whereabouts that day as I was attending school.

I accepted a collect call from my brother on 2/8/10 and we talked 27 minutes. I got my bill today for this call and it is 3 times the cost of my monthly telephone bill! How can a company legally charge $86+ for a call that lasted less than half an hour? I called Custom Teleconnect to have a block put on my phone from any future collect calls if this kind of unregulation is allowed to take place.

I made a collect call to my home phone from a pay phone in the same town because I didn't have much change with me. $45.06 was charged (incl tax) for that one call within the same town. I called and complained to ZPDI and they referred me to NCIC. I talked to Devon at NCIC. He told me it was a legitimate call. I asked how they could possibly charge that much for a call from a payphone in the same town as the receiving phone. I didn't get any answer to that. He offered a "one-time" credit of $20.18 I have no idea why he picked that amount, but I took what I could get. The call still ended up costing me $24.88. That's outrageous! Is there nothing to protect us from such charges?

I was charged $17.17 for a collect call at 5:24 am to an 83-year-old. Three minutes was shown on the bill, but the representative said it was 1 minute, 1 minute because a button was pushed. A refund was refused by Bianca, the representative. It seems this company is calling people early in the morning when people are sleep. The phone might have dropped, who knows? I'm 83 years old on a fixed income. This is highway robbery! Elderly people have it hard as it is already.

On Dec. 14, my father, who got stuck in an airport in Oakland, CA while awaiting for his plane, attempted five separate times to place a collect call to me to advise me not to pick him up at the airport. Each time, after connecting us, ZPDI dropped the call. Since he hadn't yet conveyed the correct information to me, he kept calling back. I advised the operator that we were having problems with connection, and that I didn't expect to be billed for the calls that weren't gong through. I was told that I wouldn't.

We were put through each time, and after talking for a few seconds there would be a whole lot of static, and the line would be dead. I received a bill for approximately $100. I was charged a minimum of $12.75 for each "four-minute" phone call. When I called to complain, I was told that since we'd actually spoken, I would still be charged. After being connected with a supervisor, they agreed to take around $40 off the call, but said they couldn't do better than that.

I'm incensed that this company doesn't accept full responsibility, and that their collect fees are so out of control. I am now expected to pay approximately $40-$50 for a call that ultimately lasted less than four minutes total.

We were never notified that this was a collect call. A calling card was used from a payphone in LA. The charge, of over $2.00 per minute, is usury and unrealistic. Total charges were $118.00. We need this refunded. Any assistance you can give is appreciated.

Used for a "Collect Call." I attempted to speak with a representative to ascertain cost but could not reach anyone. I was charged $17.00 for a call that normally would have been less than $1.00.

I got my phone bill from att accept a collect call from son talk 3 mins was charge 23.16 from a pay phone about 15 miles from my house. This is crazy and highway robbery. Wish this company would post the rates on the pay phone and you would know exactly where you stand.

I looked up this company and there are many complaints regarding them. But what bugs me is that AT&T knows this and yet they want to charge their customer on their (american roaming net and zero plus dailing company) behalf.

Was told that is what is charged. A charge of $95.66 for 24 min of collect calls

On our bill dated 11/5/09 AT&T billed me on behalf of the above-named company for nine collect calls made by a developmentally challenged resident of a group home in October, which I never accepted. I was charged $9.80 for 5.0 minutes on each call, for a total of $88.20. This was automatically debited from my wife's checking account on 12/5/09.

Friend of mine called me collect and I accepted charges (unaware that it was not my telephone company (Verizon) but Zero Plus Dialing, Inc. Neither my friend nor I were told what the charges would be for this 60 second call. I was charged $16.05 plus taxes. I called to complain and they said I was charged the mininum of 5 minustes.

This is outrageous. What happen to 10 cents a minute? Who are these people? Why aren't they regulated? Needless to say I AM NOT PAYING THEM. AND I THINK EVERYONE SHOULD DO THE SAME. THAT SHOULD STOP THEM.

They keep saying it was a pay phone call, when it was dialed direct from my office number. This is a total rip-off; and I don't understand how it ever got to ZPDI for billing.

I received a "other providers" addition to my Verizon phone bill for Nov. 2009 from Zero Plus Dialing, Legacy LD Intl for 4 collect calls of 1 minute each on Oct 29 from a single number (Queens, NY) for $9.80 each plus $7.32 in fees. I never accepted these calls. I know no one in NY or Queens. My answering machine answered the calls with the statement from the canned original digital voice "no one is available to take your call."

I called the number on the bill to complain about the charges that I never accepted whereupon the person claimed that I must have accepted the calls or the charges would not have been on my bill. I told him I had no intention of paying him the fraudulent charges and that I would file complaints about the scam he was using. Then he gave me crap about how someone at my house accepted the calls. I told him no one but a cat could have and cats do not accept collect phone calls from scammers. It became obvious that this was fraud and talking to him was futile.

I called my local phone provider, Verizon, to complain and asked what I could do about it. They took the Zero Plus Dialing, Legacy LD Intl charges off the bill but told me they (0+) were likely to bill me separately anyway. They also allowed me to set up a block of all 3rd party charges to my bill and block all collect calls. This means that if I ever do have a legitimate call from someone I know, I won't receive it.

Then I do a search on this scammer and find out they've been in the business of scamming people for a decade (thank you Congress!) and that appallingly, it is legal to do so.

we were charged .49 cents for univ serv fd on our nov bill. the person we spoke to told us it was from sept when our grandson called collect. we looked at our sept bill and did pay the univ serv fd of 74 cents. our grandson has not called us collect since then we know; 49 cents is not alot of money but when you dont have money 49 is alot especially when we have already payed it. so we would like it taken off our bill. also it appears they are trying to slam for long distance. our long distance carrier is Frontier. also is our local carrier.

zpdi billed me for$25.33 on behalf of american roaming net on my at&t bill. i have called and left my number on an answering machine to which no one has returned. i also tried explaining that i had made no such bill and th lady said i had and have a oood day and hung up the one time that i did get a person. there hads to be an error, i did not make this bill.

I was charged $80.28 for 5 collect calls made from a hospital by a former high school student who needed help. $14.81 for 3 min (3 calls). $17.48 for 6 minutes, $18.37 for 7 minutes. The calls were made from a town only a couple of towns north of my home. This is robbery. At no time was I told of the exorbitant price of the calls by the company. Something needs to be done.

Told my nephew not to call collect anymore and he has not. I paid the above bill from at&t. Since then, every month I have received a "statement fee" of 2.00 only, charged by zero plus dialing. Sept 2.00 and Oct 2.00

I called and they say its for collect calls and I have had no callect calls since August. Even they haven't charged me a collect call. So I try to ask "why am I still getting a statement fee from them continuously. This started a round of arguing and they told me It would be for each call. I said if it was for each call back in august then why wasn't it listed as per call charge instead of statement fee? Still more arguing. Asked for supervisor and still this "India" girl kept on and I told her I was done talking with her, I wanted a supervisor. It ended with me saying to her "get me a damn supervisor now!" Finally she transferred me. Stayed on hold 15 minutes and then I got a another "India" woman. They all sound as if they are from India.

She then told me she couldn't give me her last name. I'm like 'what'?

Someone needs to stop these people from automatically charging people a statement fee for no services rendered and by the look of the complaints against these people I can't believe this is still going on. It may be only four dollars to me right now, but that's not the principle. If I don't have any collect calls that I accepted, who are they to continue month after month charging me a statement fee. I didn't sign any contract.

I was recently in South Africa, and wanted to make a collect call to my husband in California. Directory information in South Africa advised me they no longer provide that service, and gave me another number to call: 0800993601, which I called and followed the prompts. The first call to my husband was refused as he could not understand who the caller was. I made a second call a few minutes later, and was connected. We spoke briefly - less than 5minutes.

I received my AT&T bill this weekend and have been charged for 2 calls @ US$43.92 EACH (including the call that was refused), plus taxes of US$4.77 for a total of $100.11.

I called to dispute these charges, and Zero Plus (or ZPDI) was only willing to reduce the charges marginally, which I found unacceptable, and asked for the name and address of the C.E.O. of the company, intending to take this matter further.

At no time when I placed the calls from South Africa was there any indication of the charges that would be incurred - nor an opportunity to discontinue, nor an indication that this was a satellite company - i.e. no information on the provided at all.

I will instruct AT&T to separate these charges from my bill, and not to pay them on my behalf, as this amount is in dispute.

My 9/22/09 AT&T bill contained 2 charges for 2 collect calls made from Kissimmee, Fl. I don't know anyone there. Both calls were for the exact same amount, both for the exact same time - 3 minutes, which is how long my answering machine runs before it cuts off. I was not home that night, and I live alone. $59.37 in fraudulent charges....

Was charged $45.33 for accepting 5 minute collect call from my son in Chicago who called from a payphone. Had I known that the charge was going to be so exorbitant, I would not have accepted the charge. Zero Plus should be required to disclose the amount of the charge so that potential victims of their egregious pricing can decide whether or not to participate. $45.33 was added to my telephone bill, bringing it from $60.85 to over $100.

Our office was charged $21.66 for 2 3-minute collect calls, one minute apart. Once I finally got the rep on the phone (5 minutes of hold time), I was told that even though the calls were billed one minute apart, they charge a minimum of 3 minutes per call. I then explained that the calls were placed before our office was open, meaning voicemail picked up, and that the line called was a trunk line to our system, a number that our office doesn't even have. After trying to justify his charges, and failing miserably, he finally credited me the full amount. Although we got the full amount back, it wasted about 15 minutes of my day arguing with a company that shouldn't be allowed to conduct business in the fashion they do. ALWAYS call and complain about the charges, and have a good reasoning. They will usually refund.

My phone bill was charged 75.oo for 3 1 minute collect phone calls from just two cities away.

This is a follow-up...After sending my complaint, I contacted my local carrier again. AT&T did give us a $20 credit, even though the collect call charge was not their fault-it was Zero Plus Dialing that charged the $35.98 for a 30-second call. Zero Plus Dialing said they would refund $14.39 plus tax, so most of our charges will be refunded and I am satisfied with the outcome. However, I still think it is horrible that Zero Plus Dialing can charge so much for a short collect call!

My husband was traveling in Northern Michigan & did not have cell phone reception in that area. He made a 30-second collect call to me to tell me the name of his motel. We were billed $35.98 for this call. I called AT&T (our local carrier) who told me the most they could adjust was $14.39 plus tax. I expected to pay maybe $5 for the 30-second call. This should be illegal - or is it - to charge that much. They did not disclose the amount of charges before I accepted the call!

I received an online ebill from ATT and I now have a $54 charge for a call that was placed from an unknown # my machine took the call twice, I can't beleive that this is legal and will definetly contact every agency and attorney I can I'm ****** with things slim to none as it is these people are also trying to rip off!! Incredible that this is allowed!

When we received our phone bill there was a third party charge on it for more than $35.00 to a number that we had never heard of.

I knew from the date and time of the call that we were out at the time that it had occurred.

It was the weekend so I couldn't get hold of anyone yet so I spent some time online researching the company.

I was shocked to see so many people relating experiences with this company and realized that they must be trying to bill me for a collect call attempt on my answering machine.

Fortunately thanks to this website I was well armed with information.

The person that I spoke to tried to claim that we must have accepted the call but I not only informed him that we were out and that it had been picked up by an answering machine I also gave him a list of regulatory agencies that I was planning to contact about the situation and said that I would contact a lawyer if necessary.

He put me on hold for a bit and then came back and said they would reverse the charge.

For good measure I contacted my phone company (Fairpoint Communications) and had them block all collect calls to my number.

I received an phone bill and on it was a charge for a call that was made on August 3, 2009 at 1:41am through Zero Plus Dialing. First of all, I never used Zero Plus Zero. At 1:41am I didn't use the phone or answered the phone. My only thought it was through a third party. When I tried to look up Zero Plus Zero to find them on the internet, there isn't a physical address.

I live in marrero, La.70072. My grandson called from Pensacola, FL using a pay phone collect on 4 different days. the last call 13 minutes. The other times ranged 6 to 12 minutes. My bill for these calls was $201.01. I was uterly and totaly overwhemed. These people are highway robbers. I still have one more call to be billed and looking for the worst. I paid the bill but know I have been ripped off and changed my home phone to an unlisted number. and will never accept a collect call again

My phone bill went from 62.02 to 635.01 in two months. I was on lifeline until these charges, now I am unable to pay this large bill, and my service is going to be disconnected on 9/16/09 unles the full amount is payed.

Erroneously charged by Zero Plus Dialing Inc. for an alleged collect call made from an alleged prison in Wilmington, DE. We did not accept this alleged call and refuse to pay the charges. Received NO satisfaction from customer service at Zero Plus Dialing nor from AT&T.

ZPDI, with Value Comp., charges double amounts on collect calls from Correctional institution whre relative is held, also charges where only anwsering machine picks up. I have talked to primary service provider and they are unwilling to reverse charges back to ZPDI, and phone service has been cut off until payment is received. Call charges that primary provider had told were being credited back to the account have bounced back to the overall monthly bill which is now totaling over $600.00.

Over $400 of collect calls were made to my house and recieved by a minor child. I am investigating what was said on these calls but if it was adult content I will pursue with local police.

My daugter called collect from a pay phone in England and we were charged outrageous prices for the calls. There was no standard rate for the different calls. 4 different calls 4 different rates, even though 1 call was only a few minutes from the last because we were cut off. ($5.80, $7.40, $14.31 & $12.06 per minute) I called to complain on the first bill, Qwest would not do anything. I talked to Zero Plus they did give me a rate adjustment of $62.00 the first bill and the second a $38 credit which reduce the cost to $7.24 a minute, still outrageous!!!

Wife made collect call to me we talk for three minutes and we were charged 23.66. There was no operater usage and no cost were on the phone or givin to me. Zero Plus refused to help me.

Zero Plus Dialing. This is the 3rd to 4th time that I have has a collect charge on the phone bill. Either from a jail or a mental hospital. I call and they say they cannot take off the charge cause someone excepted the charge. Which is incorrect. Most of them happened when we are not open. So they get the answer machine. It is a loss of income for us. We are paying charges that we have not legally excepted. All I want is the moneies refunded and for this to STOP! Thank you!

I received my bill and after looking at it I noticed that there were charges for 3 collect calls on July 30. They were charging me over $14 for each call. The first people I contacted was Cox communications because it was on my bundled cable, phone and internet bill. They pretty much told me that there was nothing that they could do that I needed to contact ZPDI.

When I finally spoke to a representative he just kept spouting the same canned speech that I had to have answered the phone or someone else in my home must have answered. I had to forcefully reiterate several times that no on was home at the time and that the calls were picked up by my voicemail. After being placed on hold for a couple of minutes he informed me that the charges plus taxes would be credited back to me in one to two billing cycles. But my real problem is with Cox because they want to act as thought they have clean hands in the situation when they don't and were completely unwilling to help.

What happen to those days when companies protected thier value customers. We have had AT&T for 15 or 20 yrs and this is how we get treated. I am very displeased on how AT&T conducting business with fraudlent companies.

Why is AT&T in alliance with ZDPI? Monthly billing for collect phone calls was not received. We refuse to pay for services not wanted or received.

This month I have been billed for $41.97 for a collect call from a pay phone in the United Kingdom. The charge was up on my AT&T telephone bill without my permission. I do not know anyone that was traveling in the UK nor do I know anyone that lives in UK. Today, I spoke to an AT&T rep (Janelle). She told me that they can not remove the charge and that I had to talk to Zero Plus Dialing, Inc. at -888-502-0734. I spoke to their rep Tom at that number and he told me that someone at this number had to have accepted the call. I can assure you that I would not have accepted a collect call from an international collect call. I then spoke to the supervisor Victor and he also told me that they would not remove this charge or credit me because I accepted the call.

I assured him that I would not have accepted a collect international call since I do not have any family or friends outside of the USA. I will get dunned and charged a late fee on my telephone bill if I do not pay this. This will result in an on-going problem which could cost me a lot of money and ultimately result in me losing my telephone service. I am on Social Security and therefore have a very limited income. What can I do to get this charge removed? The telephone company (AT&T) should not allow these charges to be put on a telephone bill without the customer's authorization.

I am writing to complain about some charges that were on my AT&T phone bill from a company called Zero Plus Dialing, Inc. I had 5 charges at 5 minutes each for $4.30 each. I admit I accepted 3 (which I regret) but 2 of these calls went to my answering machine.

I called AT&T and they told me if the machine picks up, it is accepted. I also sent them a letter of complaint, that they are doing business with a company that has tons of complaints against it. If I don't pay the bill, they turn off my phone and they won't send these charges separately. I hope that you can do something to change the rules so that people are not getting ripped off.

I have a $700 phone bill for third party calls that were not made or received by me. There was a mentally disturbed person at my house, staying with a sister, who must have made or received calls I know nothing about from these companies and have never heard of. What can be done? I refuse to pay them. These companies do not even have a legal department. I sent in a dispute, yes, but they will not remove the charges regardless of the situation. Just don't pay them, you don't have to. Block all this trash with your phone company.

I'm being charge $53.45 from the ZPDI on my phone bill with call type 4E which describes the collect non-taxable. I'm sure I didn't accept this type of call. I'm very angry with this situation. Please guide me on what to do. The number that appears in my bill is 503000000.

Recently I discovered that I was unable to receive collect calls on my home phone apparently due to my personal settings for incoming calls. I called my carrier Qwest who assisted me in correcting the matter. Just to make sure that my line was working properly my husband and my nephew went to local pay phones to call me collect just so we could "test" my home line and to reassure me that I could receive collect calls in case of an emergency. Both of the collect calls were made from pay phones at two separate local Dari Mart Inc. store locations in Albany Oregon. Each call that was placed were less then one minute in duration.

When I received my home phone bill I immediately noticed that it was much higher than normal. I then noticed additional billing from ZPDI (Zero Plus Dialing Inc.) on behalf of Custom Teleconnect. I was charged three minutes for each of my less than a minute calls for a total of $34.60. One call was $14.16 and the other call was $20.44. I have filed a consumer complaint with the Department of Justice in the State of Oregon. I will also be filing a complaint with the Oregon Public Utilities Commission and forwarding copies of both complaints to Oregon State Senator Ron Wyden.

Custom Teleconnect has responded to the Justice Department Complaint claiming that "rate quote information is printed on the lower signage card on every phone." This is a misleading statement since the rate quote information does not include collect calling rates for Custom Teleconnect or any collect calling service provider. In retaliation to my complaint Custom Teleconnect has also blocked my home telephone from being able to receive any calls in which they are the long distance or operator service provider.

My home phone service provider Qwest was very understanding to my situation. They did credit my phone bill for the excessive charges and also informed me that it is very common for consumers to be taken advantage of by unethical companies such as Custom Teleconnect and Zero Plus Dialing who are all willing participants in pay phone service scams.

I received a bill from my phone company (have no idea why I still pay for a land line) for $167.81. Normally my bills are around $50, but I missed one month (on vacation) yet still thought this was a little high despite missing one payment in 5 years. I investigated this bill and saw that my charges included $67.83 from a company called ZPDI (Zero Point Dialing) for collect calls. (that near $70 is for a whole 6 minutes of calls, and I'm sure they are rounding up.)

I called the company and informed them that I pay ATT for a service to automatically reject collect calls to my number and was told: "We would be happy to reverse the charges if you give us the date you placed the service on the account, the confirmation number, the representative's name and their direct dial number." Knowing full well that my records aren't that good being that I had the service for 5+ years.

I told ZPDI this was rediculous, there is no way I would have that information from such a long time ago and besides, I doubted that anyone at ATT would just give me their direct dial number. The ZPDI manager (Mark from the Phillipines) told me that I have no other choice and that they are infact just the party trying to collect and that my issues are with the connecting party, a company by the name of Custom Teleconnect.

I called CT's number and got a voice mail. After researching both companies on the internet, I found many people have been taken in by these scams but ZPDI usually just tacks on 2 or 3 dollars nothing in the amounts I've been billed. They also settled with the FTC in late '08 but apparently are up to their same tricks and being more bold about it.

Any who, regretfully, I called ATT. Sure enough, I do have collect call rejection on my line and no notes could be found as to who initially put the service on my line, what their direct number is, or even if that person still works for ATT. Then I was fed a line that the service is not theirs and eventhough it is on my ATT bill, they are not responsible for the problem. Oh and by the way, there are no supervisors to take my call.

I would appreciate any guidance you could give me to fix this problem.

Cheers,

Matt

Dorchester Ctr, MA 02124

this company charge my qwest phone bill with a collect call made from a pay phone to my home phone without my permission.this should not be allowed

I have copies of all records and letters to the FCC.

I have a phone for my elderly father of 78. He showed me the Embarq phone bill with a charge from ZPDI on March 10, 2009 at 9:33PM Phone number called from charged $14.11. I called ZPDI and spoke with Jacob with broken English and told him that there was no such call accepted by this phone and that the charge was fraudulent. He kept telling me that the call was made by a hospital/jail/ hotel. I asked well which one was it, then he says it was a cell phone. I told him my father is only one using the phone and he goes to bed at 9PM. He said that someone accepted the charges and that the bill was accurate.

I asked for his name, ID # and billing address. I then asked for supervisor and he hung up on me. ZPDI is associated with American Roaming Network. which American Roaming Network is the largest Un-Registered Roaming Service in the U.S. they process over 16 million unbillable calls each month generated by the major U.S. mobile carriers. We process calls that are considered unbillable by carrier and are typically generated by un-registered or inactive mobile phones.

MY question is this. HOW CAN YOU MAKE A LEGITIMATE PHONE CALL FROM AN UNREGISTERED OR INACTIVE MOBILE PHONE? I then called the number on the phone bill from which this so called LEGITIMATE CALL came from. It goes straight to a recorded message for American Roaming Network and states that if you have received a call be advised it may be from an unregisterd number this is not the phone # of the caller this is a number that is available when the caller ID of the caller is not available.

IT IS FRAUD FRAUD FRAUD.. Nothing is settled.

i contacted the number and spoke to a man, did not give name. told him we have gotten billed 38.11 for an 8 minute collect call, i told him we recieved no such call. he said yes we did and owe the co. 38.11, 20.00 connect fee plus 1.68 minute. i then contacted bellsouth. explained the situation and they would remove the bogus bill from our account and automatically file a dispute. plus they have a collect block on our line but the company says they are still going after us..

i am on a fixed retirement income and have serious health problems, i have serious asthma and they are really upsetting my health. what ever happened to making money honestly.

I have had over $200 in collect phone calls fraudulently billed to my home telephone number. They were billed on behalf of American Roaming Net, which is some sort of subsidiary of the Zero Plus Dialing Inc. The number that appears on my phone bill for all seven phone calls reads from DELRAY BCH FL. Come to find out, this is some sort of a fake phone number through which the Am. Roaming Net customers make their collect calls.

When I contacted Carl (he would not give his last name) at American Roaming Net, he indicated that the actual cell phone call originated from Columbia, SC. I don't know anyone in Columbia, SC from whom I would accept even one collect call, much less seven of them, to the tune of $208.89! However, Carl insisted that I must have accepted the collect charges because my phone company (AT&T) billed me for them.

I have called AT&T, Zero Plus Dialing Inc, American Roaming Net, and the North Carolina Public Services Commission. The best anyone of them has offered to do about this FRAUD (and it IS fraud), is a Mr. M. Jefferies from the Pub. Serv. Comm. said he would contact AT&T and twist their arm to give me a refund (my bills are all direct deposit, so the money has already been taken from my bank account). No one offered, even after I asked point blank, if they could tell me the name of the person who supposedly made these collect calls which I allegedly accepted. My husband (who is 88 years old) and I live in a retirement home. Several of the calls were made after midnight, and were more than 15 minutes in duration.

Now I could see myself forgetting one phone call, maybe. But not seven, and not at all hours of the day and night. My husband and I NEVER accept collect calls unless it is an emergency from one of our children... and that has not happened since we have lived here (over six years). What I don't understand, is how can someone have made it look like we accepted these calls and get it billed to our phone number? That has got to be illegal! I'd hate to think that other senior citizens were having this happen to them. I would love to see legal action taken against this company.

I am out $208.89! And on a fixed income, that is a lot of money! Not to mention the emotional trauma I have been through with CARL (from American Roaming) basically insinuating that I am a liar because I must have accepted those phone calls. It is unbelievably frustrating to know that you are in the right and having someone insist that you are wrong. Very frustrating indeed.

I have been receiving collect calls from the local jail for several years and the calls were paid by Less Concession Allowance I retired from US West and Pacific NW Bell which is now Qwest. Then in December, 2009, I received a bill from Qwest with six months of calls from ZPDI for calls from the jail in the amount of over $600.00. Now I had received bills in the mail every month for these six months, August to December and they were minus by concession. ZPDI DOES NOTHAVE THE RIGHT TO GO BACK SIX MONTHS AND CHARGE ME FOR THESE CALLS BECAUSE QWEST SOLD THE PAY PHONES TO THEM. If my concession was taken away, I should have been notified. Also if ZPDI would have sent me a bill in August I would have known my calls were not paid by concession. How can they go back six months?

I am living on Social Security and my meager $500 a month retirement from Qwest which they just took $105. off my retirement for medicare. I can not afford this plus another $200 plus in January bill. This is not fair. I try to talk to Qwest and they say they can't do anything for me.l

ZPDI is trying to charge over $100 for two collect calls that lasted a total of 12 mins. They provided no advanced rates or mention of connection fee's when these calls were made. They have been very unco-operative when contacted. Currently we are fighting these outrages charges through our phone provider, AT & T.

$100+ of additional charges that showed up on our phone bill.

3-21-2009 I received a phone bill from my local provider (Verizon) that included charges in the amount of $75.91 billed for ZPDI (27 minutes) for phone calls made to Mexico. I called ZPDI customer service and explained that I have an international call provider AT&T and I should not have been billed by ZPDI. The associate replied that I must have made an operator assisted calls, which I did not. The associate replied that I should have heard a recording warning about additional charges - which I have not heard; otherwise I would not have made those calls. This is a scam by this so called service company.

Last month my Fiance was stranded and since he lost his cell phone he had to call collect to get a ride, he then called me back to see if somebody was coming to get him, so 2 collect calls, each no more than 2 minutes. we get billed $61.42 from ZPDI, the company that handles the collect calls. OUTRAGOUS! Oh and we got charged for 6 minutes each, so 12 minutes total. So I call this company thinking this MUST be a mistake. Nope no mistake, they have a minimum charge of 6 minutes, which is $30.71, that's $5 a minute!

So no matter how long you are on the phone, it could be 2 seconds, and you are billed 30 bucks! And each additional minute is 1.99 and it's considered long distance to call from La Mesa to El Cajon she says! (Which is like 5 minutes away). Because it's not the same city! BOGUS! Then I tell her that their plan is pretty lame and they should do something about that, in so many words, and she tells me that it's the LAW! What kind of law is that?

That doesn't sound right. then I google this company, and it's just page after page of complaints on this company! Pretty shady stuff and there's nothing that I can do about it! You would think that they should at least have to warn you how much they will be charging when you call collect! THAT SHOULD BE THE LAW! DONT CALL COLLECT!

Normally were struggling from paycheck to paycheck and wouldn't be able to afford an extra $60 charge and would probably get our service shut off, but luckily we just got our tax return and had some extra money to pay this rediculous charge.

This Long distance carrier is billing people for services not rendered. I have been billed for collect calls on my home phone that was not made. A call was made from a cell phone in my name to a pay phone. This carrier billed it as a collect call to my home phone. There was two or three attempts to get me to take a collect call, and I would not. The also charged me for refusing a call.

I cannot contact the company, the number that I have furnished you is only a billing company. I have contacted the billing company and ask for a copy of all the bills against me and they refused to furnish one. They also refused to give me a phone # so I could contact the phone company.

They have cost me serveral hours of work and worry trying to settle this account.

there was a international call for 21 minuites and was charges 78.79 when i called zpdi they offered a 7.00 discount when i refused to accept and wanted a manager the representative hung up on me

The phone bill from Zero Plus Dialing came in unusually high than it normally is ($72.86), usually in the $40 range. After looking at the bill I was astonished to see that there were 11 calls to Lafayette, LA, ranging from 3 to 57 minutes! The only ones living in the house are my wife, 27 year old daughter and me and none of us know or have any family or friends OR have ever called this number. When I looked it up on the internet, it tracked back to a cell phone, no name. I was about to pay the bill to avoid late charges and worrying about an unpaid bill until I realized, why should I have to pay 30 extra dollars for calls I didn't make?

A $72.00 phone bill in these hard economic times is very stressful. My wife and I am retired and plan on joining or time off without the hassel of dealing with corrupt companies such as Zero Plus Dialing.

In January my husband recieved a call back from a technical support person at a tool company. He did think it odd it came in collect, but needed to speak to the man. We just got our phone bill in and have a $78.54 charge for this call that claims it came from Puertvalla, MX. When I searched for this town I got a lot of information about ZPDI and scam calls. I called them and was routed to the other company listed, who told me we did infact accept a collect call from the man that we accepted and therefore were resposible for.

We called the tool company who has record of the tech calling us direct from his desk, not from a payphone or hotel room. They are trying to firure out how these companies hacked into their systems. I called ZPDI, got the other company and the man Walter I spoke to also told me we accepted a coolect call from a payphone in Puerto Vallarta Mexico, Cancun. That is really funny since the two locations are on opposite sides of the country.

I am calling back tomorrow and recording the conversation I have with them to bag them in their lack of geographical information and catch them in the out and out lie. The tool company is willing to help us any way they can and are sending us a letter stating there was no collect call made from them to us. I have a phone charge of $78.54

My son is in an alcohol treatment center. His avenue to family is either phone cards or collect calls. He directed me to ZPDI long distance and they quoted me a price of: $2.55 connect fee and 10 cents per minute. My son is allowed a max. of 20 minutes. (Should be a max. bill of $4.55) My first bill came today. I was billed 14.04 for a 16 minute call and 15.97 for a 19 minute call.

I am unemployed and EVERYTHING has to be budgeted...I am sick over this and face getting my phone shut off because the OVER CHARGES were not in my budget.

I received a charge for 39.57 plus taxes for collect calls. I have a block on my phone so there is NO way for my phone to get collect calls. I called my phone company (Qwest) and they said that I did infact have the block on my phone for collect calls. I was transfered to Zero Plus Dialing and speaking to Cynthia and Kim they needed the rep name and direct number of the perosn who put the block on my phone. After yelling at me Kim said that she was going discount the call.

I am being charged on my AT &T bill for a collect call that I did not accept the charges for.$43.20 My answering machine did have a recording on it saying You have a collect call to accept... but I was NOT at home to accept. When I called them they said that they would give me a 25.oo curtesy credit but that was all they could do. They asked my name and address. I then called AT T to see what I should do to get the rest refunded. They sent a rejection request to Zero Plus. When it still appeared on my bill the next month, I called Zero Plus again and they said that by giving my name and address that I agreed to pay the rest of the bill. The operator never said that, I would not agree to just pay 17.00 dollars for a call that I didn't take or accept.

It is wrong for people to be charged 43.20 for a collect call that they did not receive!!!

My phone company is Verizon. I got my bill for 12/07/08 and i had collect calls from my brother in Dodge City ,Ks. If an operater would of told me the cost of accepting the call I would of refused them. On My bill there was a collect call for 20 min. for 68.83, another for 11 min. for 50.92, one more for 12 min. for 52.91. This is against anything I have ever seen. I knew there would be a few more on my next bill 01/07/09. One for 13 min for 54.90, another for 3 min. for 35.00, one more for 8 min.for 44.95. And one for 6 min for 11.93. thats a total of 79 min..1st bill was 160.47 and the 2nd was 187.16. This is over 4.00 a min. Can't something be done about this?

My normal bill is 64.95 a month. That is all I can afford. I paid my bills to Verizon for their part but the ones added on my bill from ZPDI I can't afford. Verizon said when the operator asked me if I'd accept the calls that they say what the cost per min. is. I told Verizon It was all automated and no one done such a thing. I want to pay for my calls but i feel over 4.00 a min. is totally wrong and I want it adjusted on my bill. i figured around maybe .35 a min. but nothing like this. This is ripping off the consumer.

I received a monthly bill from AT&T showing two collect calls from Florida on 12/22/2008, each lasting 3 minutes. The charges were $27.15 each with custom teleconnect fees of $17.29. The total cost was $71.59. Nobody was home that day as we all were in San Diego visiting my family from 12/18/08 to 12/28/08. The calls were answered by an answering machine. These calls were certainly NOT authorized as no person answered the calls.

This company fraudulently charged my ATT account for these calls, not to mention the ridiculous amount. These two 3 minutes call started at 3:18pm and 3:21pm on 12/22/2008, three minutes apart! Unfortunately there are many thousands of phone company such as ATT customers that fall prey to these practices as I searched throught the internet. This practice must be stopped. I can understand if someone was home to accept the collect calls that I would be responsible for the charges no matter how ridiculously expensive they are, but that wasn't the case.

I must have spent hours of my time to try to resolve this, not to mention frustration.

I was charged for collect phone calls that I never accepted. My daughter was in a nursing home and used Zero Plus. My husband and I never answered the phone If we did not recognize the number. Never, ever did we answer to any of these calls totaling 208.00. Zero Plus stats that they only can give us back 70.00 for the calls that are 3 min. and not for the calls that are 5 min. How can that be when we never answered the phone! We do have a answering machine. So my question is are they charging the answering machine. Wow is of no help at all-even when I told them the first time it happen to put a block on my phone ASP back in Sept./Oct. and was told that they could not. Something has got to be done about Zero Plus.

It cost me $208.00 plus taxes of a service that I never used. Not to mention the hours on the phone trying to correct the matter.

We tried to challege part of the charges on our Qwest phone bill and she was not helpful at all. Said we had to wait until the charges appeared on the billing statement

not settled yet

On 12/4/08 I received a telephone bill from my local phone company in the amount of $230.97. This is about 6 times the amount of my average phone bill of $35.00. I was extremely upset. Upon reviewing the bill I noticed that I was being charged $193.55 for long distance phone calls. There were around 80 calls to one number (a local number). So the next day I called my local phone company to discuss the issue. The operator reviewed my bill and agreed that I had been incorrectly billed for local phone calls but said he could not do anything about it because the charge s were coming from a third party billing company Zero Plus Dial Inc, I was instructed to call ZPDI.

When I called ZPDI, the operator claimed that there was no account information for my phone number. He then asked me to fax a copy of my bill to ZPDI so there billing team could investigate the issue. On 12/11/2008 I faxed them a copy of my November bill. I received no information from them. I paid my bill, but I only sent the phone company my usual amount of $37.42. On 1/4/09 I received the next phone bill from my local carrier. This time the bill was for $328.08, unpaid charges for the previous month plus additional long distance charges for the current billing month.

Again I called my local phone company and explained the situation. This time the operator called ZPDI directly and stayed on the line while I explained the situation. Again the ZPDI employee claimed that there was no billing information for my phone number and instructed my to again fax a copy of my bill to there billing department for investigation. I explained to the gentlemen that I already did that last month and that nothing became of it. I then asked the gentlemen to try to look up my account based on my name and address. He then placed me on hold for about a minute or two and when he returned, he tried to pretend that he could not hear me. I tried repeatedly to answer him back put he persisted, then when the local phone company operator interjected and he could hear me again.

The operator from my local company insisted that he put us in contact with the manager so that we could resolve the issue. The manager, Michael ID# 82114, took my phone number and explained that he would call be back at my work number that I was calling from. Before we ended the call I asked him for his full name, but said he could only give me his first name. I then asked him for an email address and he would only give me the website information. When I asked him for a direct number he gave me the standard 800 number.

The local operator gave me a credit for all but $30 of the charges that ZPDI was charging me in lieu of a credit from ZPDI. She also put a block so that they could not charge me in the future. Im guessing that next month I will have charges up to the point where she starting to block the charges. I have no issue with file legal action against ZPDI, please feel free to contact me with any questions.

So far, the consequences have been my aggravation with ZPDI, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and late payment fee from my local phone company for not paying the fraudulent long distance charges. I have no idea what effect it might have on my credit record. If this nonsense continues I will have to have my land line canceled on I will no longer have access to my dial-up internet service. Then I will have the added frustration of listening to my kids cry about not being able to go online.

I was charged $21.95 for a collect call to St. Petersburg FL when I was in St. Petersburg FL and then charged another $4.05 for a call that I made in December 2008!
I was told by ZPDI that the charges could not be credited back to me, therefore I had to call Verizon to take care of this!

I rec'd my Dec bill and it has a charge of 9.52 long dis chg on it. Qwest told me they have ZPDI can charge this to my bill even without any authorization from me and their is nothing they can do about it. They also told me they have no way to block this from happening again in the future. Jeffie at ZPDI refused to let me cancel this service and or dispute the bill and also refused to allow me to talk with a supervisor. What do I do?

I am submitting this as a follow up to my complaint that you published against ZPDI, dated September 28, 2008. At that time I also filed an FCC complaint against ZPDI. I am happy to report that NCIC, who provides carrier operator services for ZPDI, has issued a full credit for the unauthorized charges to my telephone account. In addition, NCIC has also blocked my number to prevent billing through their service in the future. Many thanks to Consumer Affairs for providing me with the information that I needed to bring this issue to a satisfactory close.

I made a 30 second collect call to me home from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico and received a bill for 49.35. I phoned the business and they will not reduce the charges to an acceptable amount of 5.99 a minute or there abouts.

I received a bill from my phone company, ATT, that had a $25.35 charge for a collect call of 3 minutes. No one was home on that date as we were vacationing with our children out of town and there is no way that a collect call was accepted from my home phone. This is an outrage! I did call Zero Plus and they are crediting my account that will take one or two billing cycles because I told them no one was home at the time of the call.

I also called Custom Teleconnect and they are placing a block on my phone number that will not allow this to happen again....that is a call from a Teleconnect phone booth- how many companies are there that this could do this? My complaint is how could this happen? I have done everything I can to stop it from happening in the future, but I am not confident of that. I called ATT back and they said they are regulaed byt the Public Utilites Commission and that ATT must put it on the bill if a company bills for a charge. Should people never be able to accept a call from a loved one in an emergency for fear of outrageous chares? This is just not right.

My time and frustration!

$8.93 charge for NOTHING - no service, no call - NOTHING!

not giving extra money to AT&T

I received a bill from Verizon that included a charge for $27.48 from ZPDI for a collect charge. I did accept a call from my sister (emergency situation) that lasted about 30 seconds. I was charged $5 per minute at 5 minutes minimum. I called, complained, and left a message for a supervisor. I paid my bill so I could maintain my good credit. I received another bill for ZPDI, this time with the same date, one hour later from a slightly different number. I called and they said that I did accept this collect call (which was impossible, because my sister was home by then!). They then offered to reverse the charge.

6 phone calls have been made from 07-30-08 to 08-10-08 for the amount of $79.41 Billed on Behalf of AmericanRoamingNet. There was nobody home on the days and the hours of these phone calls that were made to the home phone #.

I have payed the bill and cannot get anyone from AT&T to stop the billing or the calls.

I looked for a pay phone. I inquired from a worker if they had any pay phones. He pointed to a door nearby to a room that was filled with payphones.Jackpot!! I then proceeded to call my husband back collect, and finished telling him where I was enroute and when to expect me home.On my home to VA from MI,I was trying to make a call from my cell phone to my husband.It was around 11:00pm so I didn't want him to worry. Of course driving through the mountains, I got lost my connection.I thought, oh, great! now he's really going to worry because the call was cut off. So I stopped at the rest area in to call again. Even in the building my cell phone did not get a connection, so

One month later, I received a bill for about $30.00 for a 4 minute phone call.I called to complain, so Zeroplus reduced the amount by $12.00, the girl Vash said that was as low as they could go. I paid the amount assuming that I wouldn't get any further reductions. The next month they sent me another bill for a reassessment of my bill as well as taxes.I refuse to pay those.

I received collect calls from this Company. Call was placed from a street corner and I do not know who this call is from? In addition, they keep charging me for additional regulatory fees and teleconnect collect call fee? on statements received after the charge? I called and they said I needed to speak with AT&T who was my primary phone company. AT&T tells me that I need to speak with ZeroPlus Dialing.

My phone bill is $41.00 higher that what it should be. I could use that money to pay other bills.

Was charged $11.00 per minute to accept collect call from relative in a state hospital for rehabilitation that is less than 75 miles from my home. For 4 phone calls, ZPDI charged me $56.00. This is highway robbery when you consider how many people they do this to. I Know it also happened to my daughters.

A 3 min. collect call was placed from a convenience store pay phone at Diamond Lake WA to our home in Spokane which is less than an hour away. Normally this would cost about $2-$3 or 50 cents. We got the bill for this call on our Qwest statement and it was $18.10 from a company called Zero Plus Dialing. Our internet research concluded that this company is a scammer and it is sad. Calls to the company should note that Sam the supervisor and Nick the call attendant did not satisfy our request for reasonalble compensation or settlement on the charge. Their offer was a disgraceful joke and insult to our integrity. No one person in this company deserves jobs.

Our long established (over 20 yrs with the same company) phone bill must be paid. We ask that this scrupulous company not be allowed to destroy one more customers credit. THIS SHOULD NOT EVER BE ALLOWED. WE WOULD LIKE QWEST TO GET INVOLVED AS WELL.

I recieved a bill with 4 collect call charges. Two of which I know I personally accepted but there was certainly no explaination of charges and no live person to ask, I only had the option to accept or refuse by pressing a button. I figured there would be a small fee but the charges were 6.70 per minute on one of the calls and then had several fees on top of that. a 3 minute call was 23.60.

The economic damage it caused was 89.84 for the four short calls. As those call had to be accepted for medical emergencies we had plenty of medical bills too. This company is taking advantage of people when they are vulnerabe and in desparate situations.

Still in process of sorting out who to file complaint(s) with. Local phone provider(COX) lists 3rd party billing agent on my COX bill as ZPDI who I have called. Disputed(3) 3min collect calls made from my Las Vegas Hotel room @ Embassy suites. The 3 calls are billed at a OC/1 rate time which works out to 6.78 a min for calls that were less than 1 min each with one call not ever connecting or answered,yet still charged as a 20.36 call as were the other 1min completed call.

I offered/would only pay for 2mins total @ 6.78 per min = 13.56 or nothing at all and dispute the whole amount with my local COX service provider. Told by not 1 but 2 service reps and 1 supervisor that I would have to take that up with COX and that they were only the collections dept for the calls made. Took 3 calls to ZPDI to inquire who the company was that they were collecting the 6.78 a min calls for? Finally get the name of the carrier who they(represent/bill/share in spoils)as CUSTOM TELECONNECT.

I call them to dispute amount as well and told that I called from a pay-phone (which is NOT a Pay-Phone but the actual main # to the Hotel I was staying at! ZPDI also told me the same thing and I called them on that as well. Bottom line is that this isn't the first time I have had a problem with ZPDI 3rd party billing!(BUT THATS ANOTHER STORY IN AND OF ITSELF). COX cable has been notified for the 2nd TIME of a ZPDI experience that I am disputing,and I conclude that it will take another 3 billing cycles to clear this on up as well. Will give updates as this snails on forward. (2nd Time Crammed)and fighting back!

In progress

I have 2 collect calls on my bill, 1 for 18 minutes and the other for 27 minutes, due to an emergency situation with my son. The total for the 2 calls is $158.22. This is not the customary rate for phone service and is completely unreasonable. This more than my total monthly phone bill. This is an overcharge and consumer fraud and completely unreasonable.

I will have to pay this charge with my phone carrier to remain in good standing with my phone carrier as they have already paid the charges in advance.

Our son is in the United States Army, Stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. During some portions of his training, they are not allowed to have a cell phone and only allowed to make phone calls only at special times which are un-designated and unkonwn to the soldiers. This is the portion of Advanced Infantry School which qualifies my son to protect this Nation in all arenas. During this the time they are alloted to make a phone call, they are provided with a bank of pay phones.

When the soldier calls home collect because they are not allowed to have any money on their person, credit cards or debit cards or phone cards, they call collect. When you answer the ophone and accept the unkown charge rate, you are billed up to $4.65 per minute. When you question the bill, you are connected to a company in the Phillipines, non-Americans whom could care less about the United States or the American Soldier. They are extremly difficult to deal with, speak broken english and could care less about your concerns of astronimical billing issues. This service is connected to AT&T. After over an hour of arguing they agreed to reduce my bill to near $3.00 per minute but that is still rediculious. The men of the U.S. Army should be allowed to talk with their families at a resonable customary cost. When the billing is handled, it should be with Americans. These phones shopuld be banned from our American Armed Forces Instituitions without question.

Extermly high phone bill, elevated blood pressure, embarassment for my Country and our Military Personnel. I want this system rejected from our military bases immediatly. I want the company to be forced to communicate their service charges before they rip-off another American in another location other than a MIlitary Base.

Husband call collect, recieved bill for 3 min. $35.46, 10 Min. $36.25, 4 Min.$28.45......price gauge

Can't afford this, we are retired on fixed income. Please help

My telephone carrier is Verison. For two collect calls to my number, each lasting 5 minutes, I was charged $24.00 for each one from ZPDI that was on my Verison bill. That is $48.00 total for 10 minutes total call use time. That is more than I pay for my unlimited service per month with Verison.

This is a complete rip-off. The fee that ZPDI on Verisons billing statement to me amounts to $288.00 per hour! Do you see my problem?

$288.00 per hour for a phone call has major effects on anyones personal finances. They steal, and we pay. STOP THEM!

We received charges on our monthly bill about $38 for a collect call from ZPDI. We were never informed about this collect call. We received a call from an operator and asked someone is willing to talk to you. Then I said, ok pass it on. Nothing was mentioned about being as a collect call and charges will be imposed on our monthly bill. I called ZPDI and customer representative was very rude and not at all cooperative. This is absolutely cheating with the customer.

We eventually have to pay this charge to avoid further complications. I am going to post this on many websites but I am not sure how to inform people about this scam. I wonder how such a service is present which robs people. There are complains all over the internet. Mine would be another one. Who is the owner of this company?

When my 26 year old stepdaughter was in the hospital, she placed four phone calls and had them billed to my telephone number without my authorization or knowledge. I first became aware of this when I received my QWest phone bill and saw charges from ZPDI totaling over $60 for four three-minute calls. This averages out to $5 per minute for calls within the U.S. I contacted ZPDI and they told me who had made the calls, and said that she told the operator this my telephone number was her number. I explained that the caller has never lived me, did not have my permission to use my number, and used it without my knowledge; therefore, I wanted a credit on my bill.

The representative told me that could not be done. I persisted and continued to receive the same answer. I asked whether anyone in the world could make a call, fradulently using my number, and I would be charged for it. The representative said, Yes. I asked what recourse I had, and he told me that I could file a fraud report with the police. Next, I asked to speak to this representative's supervisor. I had to repeat this request several times before being transferred. When I reached the supervisor and explained, she told me that they could credit my account for $21 and I would have to pay the balance.

I told her that this was completely unacceptable and that I was going to take it up with QWest. QWest was much more reasonable. They told me that they could file a fraud complaint and that they would credit my account after I completed the report. Because of QWest's willingness to work with me, I did not suffer any financial consequences. If I had dealt solely with ZPDI, I would have been responsible for paying for fraudulently-made calls.

I called ZPDI on 09092008 and asked for someone to tell me what the charges are for.I was told collect calls, no one was home to accept these calls, also I have had collect call block for years, with all the scams from people in prison and the ability of others to route from you number to others in other countries, causing outrageous calls to be on your phone bills. At&T was not much help either, see below this is my inquiry. They informed me to call ZPDI, which was done. ZPDI, told me I neededto prove thatI had call blocking for collect calls.This featureis a part of the Complete Choice Package with Bellsouth, which is now At&T. Now called the Preferred Plan, which Isigned up for in March 14,2007.

After leaving Bellsouth for their lousy customer service Ihave since August of this year ported my number to another carrier, as I had become dissattified with theirservice yet again. I am not going to pay for these charges Per their website: Call Blocking Avoid Unwanted Calls Call Blocking $7.00 per month, included with BellSouth Complete Choice at no additional cost pricing details Block calls from specific numbers so your phone does not even ring

I got charged for two collect calls from this company 35.41 ea fpr 6 min. There customer service person who was (from India) told me that I was informed of the charges before I accepted the call, which is a lie. If I would have known that it was going to cost me this much I never would have excepted the call. Mysister was stuck in Santa Ana I live in Granada Hills. There is only a 50 mile difference

The amount came out to 70,82 plus all the taxes applied the bill is 79.27. This is an outrage.

Placed a 4 minute call from New mexico to my home and was billed $40.00

I recieved a call from my local company stating that they realized unusual activity that caused them to contact me regarding collect calls. They advised me that several collect calls were showing on the morning of July 4th. I advised thwm that I did not accept any collect calls and if there was anything that I could do to keep that from happening in the future. At that time a block was placed on my phone line. I recently recieved the bill and was very upset. The charges for the calls were outrageous for one thing.

The other thing was when I contacted them to dispute the charges. There are only two people that reside in my home, myself and my ten year old son. I was very furious when they said it doesn't matter who accepts the call it is still considered valid whether you are the account holder or not. The charges are totaling $167.64 for 5 calls made from a local phone booth for a total of 120 minutes. I was then advised that they consider the calls valid and they will not credit the calls. I was told by Dorothry that I needed to contact Custom Collect if I had any further questions regarding my bill.

That is when I got Nina who advised me of the same thing. These charges are ridiculous. I do not even call my family collect. I use a calling card or my cellular. This is ridiculous and I do not believe that it is fair. I am already struggling to make ends make for me and my son and they want me to pay this outrageous bill for a call that I never accepted and I am the account holder the person responsible for the bill.

I demand this service, Zero Plus Dialing be removed from my phone bill immediately before I take further legal action. This a disgrace. I never asked for this service and I DO NOT WANT IT ON MY PHONE BILL. AT & T is playing innocent but they are part of the scam as well. Please respond as soon as possible.

I am in poor health and do not need the stress this has caused me and my husband. Thank you.

I demand this service, Zero Plus Dialing be removed from my phone bill immediately before I take further legal action. This a disgrace. I never asked for this service and I DO NOT WANT IT ON MY PHONE BILL. AT & T is playing innocent but they are part of the scam as well.

I am in poor health and do not need the stress this has caused me and my husband. Thank you.

I received a pone bill from Verizon with a $20.60 charge for a collect call that never accepted. I called the company ZPDI, the operator said she would take the call off as a courtesy. I asked her how this hapened and she said as far as I and my company are concerned someone there at my houshold accepted the call and it was my responsibilty to know who is answering my phone.

It is only me and my husband. But in effect she was calling me a liar. I asked her how her and her company coould be responisible for charging $20.00 for 3 minutes, but ended up in a yelling match and she disconnected.

In March 2006 I recieved a phone bill from Bell Canada in the amount of 399.96 for collect calls made from Cambridge Mass. thru Atlantic ZPDI in the amount of 119.95. I called Bell Canada about this absurd bill because ever since i had my phone connected in 2003 I've had long distance block protection put on my line, which means I can't even recieve collect calls.

Bell Canada refunded me, however on July 21'st 2008 I recieved a letter from CSC Corp, a collection systems in Canada stating thet i still owe this collection agency, who is collecting for ATLANTIC ZPDI a balance of 156.38 for these collect calls. I am contacting the better business bureau of Canada to have this company investigated and held responsible for this PHONE SCAM, hoping it will help others.

They are threatening my credit rating, and public records, which as they stand now are excellent.

Billed for charges applied on behalf of Inmate Services on June 30, 2008 $16.35. When I call I cannot get an explaination of these charges. I think this is a scam.

$16.35 in charges that I don't know origination of.

One six minute collect call from a daughter in distress - $20.23!!!!!!! I know they charge people from prison this much too and this scam should be illegal!!!

A friend used a pay phone, he called collect as he didnt have 50c. He called collect for a ride home..I was charged for 9min which I dont think so for $22.50. This was a local call..I have started our city consumer affairs/and reno utility franchise officers to look into this practice..

My complaint alledges unfair pricing in the poorest section of our city..the charges are totally out of line..

They charged me for a collect call on my phone bill that I never accepted nor did anyone else inmy household. They charged me $12.40 to my bill that I should not have to pay and argued with me in reagards to this matter over the phone.

Collect call charge to my bill on 4/27 for 23.75 that I did not accept. Call removed from May bill and reappeared on my June bill again. Plus there are additional connection charges and taxes for 5.66.

Money I can not afford to THROW away.

I recently received additional changes on my Qwest bill in the amount of $241.64. While in Cancun I called direct because calling cards would not work. I called 5 times for a total of 27 minutes. This amounts to $8.94 per minute. I could understand this type of rate 30 years ago, but today with new technology this is nothing more than a scam. What I find most disturbing is Qwest providing the billing for ZPDI. After a little research I find that this company based in Texas is no more than a collection agency representing TELCO companies. Not only did Qwest provide billing for ZPDI, but they also paid ZPDI up front. My refusal to pay will now result in a confrontation with Qwest. So, what to do.

After speaking with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission I was advised I can make Qwest recourse the charges. In other words Qwest must go back to ZPDI and get a refund on the money paid. This I did a few minutes ago. Now ZPDI can bill me directly. Unless they can provide me with a substantial reduction their in for a fight. All the emails on this site and others show that this company is stealing millions from the public. If they want to fight me they will in front of a Judge. Time will tell and more to come.

A charge of $3.45 appeared on my ATT bill with no explation. I called ATT and they could not explain the charge. Thank you

I received an extra phone charge, in a separate sheet from my phone provider, AT & T, labelled ZPDI, for a total of a collect call made from Clearwater Florida to my home phone. It had a code DSB, for 3 minutes, total of $37.32. The date was /5/20/2008, the time 8:16 p.m. I do not know anybody in Florida. I do not make, or accept long distance calls ANYWHERE. I have never had a long distance phone service.

The Mike person I spoke with @ 4:25 p.m. this Tuesdat, June 17. from Houston, Texas was the one who told me this phone is a pay phone in Florida! The AT & T phone person I spoke with first, here in Houston, also apologized, stating that the AT & T logo was on the bill and page, because they are a billing company for other billing companies. Which is the same lame excuse the Mike person gave from Manila, the Philipines, saying that they were a billing company for something called Custom Teleconnect, which is the name given on the $37.32 bill tacked to my phone bill for this month.

I suggested to AT & T person, Houston, TX and to Mike person, Manila City the Phillipines, that they should add a bill for their hourly services to the ORIGINATOR of this SCAM, for their time spent with me. To which, my hourly time should be added: when I work for the local community college, it is billed at $55.00 an hour; when I work for University of Houston Downtown and the University of St.Thomas, it is $155.00 an hour. NO PHONE CALLS FROM ATTORNEYS AT ALL. No More solicitation!

Both systems say today that they will run a check and a clearance. With AT & T, this will not clear until my next billing period. With ZPDI, about the same, 30 days or so.

I just received my phone bill and found that where my son had called me collect from Constantine, MI. I was charged $31.09 for a 4 min. phone call. This rounds out to be over $7.00 per min. I feel that this is an outrages amount for 1 phone call. I will not except any more long distance calls that are collect. I do believe that something needs to be done in regulating what a company can charge for any phone call. Just because when you receive a collect call that you don't what the charges are until you get your bill they can charge you amounts that would be considered over and above the norm.

I told my son that it would have been cheaper to drive here. That he can pay for this call and to never call me collect again because I will never except anymore long distance phone calls. They can go buy a phone card if they want to call me since these phone companies want to rip you off with unreasonable charges. At this point I am considering having my home phone taken out and only have a cell phone. This bill was a shocker! $31.09 for 4 minutes.

This amount was about the same amount that my phone company charges me for a whole month. Even though it was a collect call I feel it was an unreasonable charge. I did not expect a bill of this substantial amount and did not plan for it but have to pay what ever they want to charge me.

I feel the government needs to put in some type of regulation to stop companies like this from unresonable charges. I feel that when you are excepting collect calls that they should have to tell you what the charge is per minute. If this were the case I am sure a lot more people would be rejecting the collect calls

I recieved my phone bill today and it was $600.00 dollars more than my normal monthly amount. I reviewed the bill and it shows that my house accepted 7 long distance calls totaling only 3h 12 mins back to back each call 31 minutes from someone I do not even know. I have received a recording at times when I answered the phone and had no idea what it was saying so I hung up.

I have never in my entire life thought I would be scamed by a company. I am going to work with Qwest and see what we can do, however it seems as though they might not help. How can a major phone company allow a 3rd party rip off take advantage of there customers.

On May 5th, 2008 on my way home I stopped to call home, by placing a collect call to my wife. Seven minutes later, little did we know, we had been charged $42.96. It was just today, paying bills, that we noticed the charge. We feel this charge, considering the going rate for cell phone services, and land-line rates, should be illegal.

If I had known this charge would be so high, I would have used quarters instead. These charges should be a criminal offense. I'm sorry but, conveniently, this company does not provide their phone number or address. http://www.billview.com/zpdi

$42.96 for 7 minutes of phone time.

We have phone service through Cox Communications (our cable company). Our last bill was twice as high as normal. When we checked it, there was $195.00 in collect calls. We weren't even home on the days and times listed because everyone was at work and school. We never have anyone call us collect. Not to mention that we don't even know anyone in AL!

When my husband called the cable company, they said that there wasn't anything they could do, that we would have to deal w/ the company or have our cable disconnected. When my husband called ZPDI, the man he spoke w/ said the calls were legit & we could not dispute them.

The phone numbers on the bill go right back to the company. When he listened to the message, it was a woman who said my husband's name. My husband was at work at the time & it should have been the name of the caller on the recording, not my husband's. We either have to pay them $195.00 for calls that we didn't accept, or our cable gets cut off.

two emergency calls accepted using the att infrastructure for 6 minutes each billed at 59.00 dollars.

59.00 us dollars of outrageous billing nt advertised on the payphone from 1/4 mile away not from a correctional institution.

Over two months, March and April, att billed my home phone number for a collect call made through zero plus dialing; the call was alledgedly received on March 12th for a total cost of $38.10 including the 16 minute call time and fees. Calls to this number to determine the identity of the calling party are not answered.

I spoke with a supervisor at Zero Plus and they told me that no credit would be issued and if I wanted to pursue it further I should write a formal letter of complaint. Att purports that they are powerless to do anything about it, include protect me from future charges of this nature.

Unauthorized collect calls came to my home phone. No one home to answer, only my answering machine picked up. I recall checking my messages and heard a strange voice stating you have a collect call, then silence, no name, just a lot of clicking noises. I didn't think nothing else about it. I still received a bill for $1,413.64 by Zero Plus Dialing, Inc. on behalf of Amerian Roaming Network, Inc. The calls came from somewhere in Delray Beach Florida.

Staff at ARN claim their offices are located in Delray Beach. Customer service at ZPDI referred me to ARN and the customer service at ARN would not listen to my complaint. The people at ARN argued with me, cut me off, would not listen to me, and threatened me with collection agency. I wouldn't be surprised if the employees at ZPDI and ARN are in on this phone scam.

I contacted my local telephone service and requested they block all incoming collect calls that try to get through to my home phone. I am the victim, my identify was basically stolen and I refuse to pay a bill that I did not make. I want to clear my name and have these charges removed from my phone bill.

I have filed a complaint with the North Carolina Attorney General's office. I am waiting to hear back from their office. The economic damage is the amount of the phone bill ($1,413.64) and time in trying to clear up this matter.

Made Collect call from a pay phone. Was charged $13.14 for a 3 minute call for which I was only talking for 1 minute. This is a rip-off. There was no sign or message stating the outrageous pricing of the call.

Being charged for collect call that were not accepted. 2 minutes for 12.95and 10 minutes for 22.00

$150.90 worth of calls that were not accepted

several collect calls were on Frontier phone bill amounting to $634.08 these calls were never accepted.

I called Frontier and ZPDI

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Was billed on my LEC bill for 3 collect calls, which came in after office hours, when no one was present to accept the call. Two of the calls apparantly came from collect only phones in the county jail. Other call could have come from state pen. Calls were from 3-4 min each, and cost $17-$22. Calling location only 10 miles from receiving location.

3 calls billed at 57.68, plus junk charges of $7.10 = $64.78. Contested.

A member of my family called me collect from jail. He had no notification as to how much the calls were. When the calls came in, my children (both under the age of 18) accepted some of the calls. Although the operator said a rate sheet was available, when you are in this situation, you are not thinking clearly. All the calls were accepted. As a result, I received my phone bill, and have charges amounting to $229.79 for these collect calls. The price ranges from $1.09 per minute to $8.46 per minute.

How can this company get away with it. I have written to the company that outsources this service, and have also written to ZPDI. I am writing to my representatives, and to my State Attorney General to get this company checked into. How dare they take advantage of such a vulnerable situation.

I cannot pay this bill at this time. We (my family) are experiencing bad times in Michigan. I hope that this doesn't affect my credit rating.