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Linda of Springfield, AR (8/22/05)
I received a call from an operator on 7/16/05 while my husband was out of
town. There was a great deal of static on the line and the operator had a
strong accent that made him hard to understand. He asked if this was the
home of Mike C. and I answered yes. The line immediately went dead.
On my next month's telephone bill there was a ZPDI charge for $90.66. I have
no idea who called our house. I called ZPDI and asked about the charge. The
woman I spoke with said that the charge would not have been on our bill if
I had not answered “yes”. She said the charge was legitimate and would not
be removed.
I called SBC customer service and they removed the charge from my bill.
Shawn of Ft. Bragg NC (5/30/01):
We receive local phone service from Sprint. On our local bill was a charge from ZPDI, a 3rd person call charged to our number. We did not recognize either number. When I called ZPDI, they said they received permission from our answering machine. They said they matched the voice. Well that is impossible because my voice is not on the answering machine. They refuse to reslove this
The charge is only $15.77 but I refuse to pay it because I know it is a fraud. This has been a huge hassel.
J.B. of Boca Raton FL (5/30/01):
On 4/13, 4/20, and 4/21 third-party calls were billed to my phone from pay phones in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. The calls were to Texas, California and Miami. I never authorized any charges, nor talked to any operator on the phone about those charges. Upon further reflection, no one else had access to this phone line at this home at the times on the bill, or any other time, for that matter. I did receive a message on my answering machine from an operator asking to accept long distance charges, but thought nothing of it, because no one answered the phone, and the message is the standard call back later, no one is home.
I missed the charge for the call on 4/13. It was on the previous bill, and I neglected to check that bill carefully. I caught the charges on the next bill, and called the company, ZPDI, promptly. They insist that someone must have ok'd the charges, because, after all, they were on the bill, and obviously I was lying because I already paid for one of them. I promptly told them I refused to pay, and I would see them in court.
I then called Bellsouth. Christine in Daytona Beach was very helpful, and took the charges off the bill for the time being, noting that they were being contested. I then contacted the Florida Public Service Commission for the intra state call, and the FCC in regards to the calls to California and Texas. I realize that ZPDI is just a collection agency for Qwest Comms, but their performance is awful. At any rate, before anything else is done, someone needs to be forthcoming about who made these calls, to whom the calls were made, and the operator or operators/ and/or electronic machinery that ok'd the charges to my bill. I cannot emphasize too strongly that these charges were not accepted by anyone at this location, or on this phone. I have no interest in negotiating the charges for the calls, although I must admit, the amount they charge is outrageous. I refuse to pay, frankly, because I had no part in any of it.
Becki Jo of Odon IN (4/12/01):
I have been fighting a charged collect call, to no avail. My phone bill showed a charge, for a collect call for five (5) minutes, at a rate of $31.05. This is outragous. No one was home to accept this call. It was made from an area that I have no relatives nor do I know anyone who lives in Wisconsin.
I have contacted ZPDI, several times, and have been told that someone here had to accept such a call, and that I would have to pay for it. My local phone company has worked with me thus far, but they cant be expected to wait forever on their money either. I would be very interested in finding out the steps I need to take to beable to clear this matter. I am sure that this company ZPDI has a very LARGE income from every state. Thank you for being one of the first to bring this matter to the eyes of the public.
Maureen of Seattle (4/10/01):
Let me first say I am so glad to have found your site! Now I know I am not the only person dealing with this "ZPDI" phone scam! This absolutely outrages me! This is what happened: In December 2000, I received my long distance phone bill from Sprint. It was much higher than usual so I looked at it in detail. I was absolutely shocked when I saw a collect call from Tijuana, Mexico! I immediately contacted Sprint to dispute the call. They informed me there was nothing they could do and that I needed to contact the company who handled the call, ZPDI.
I contacted this company and filed a complaint. I also informed them that, IN NO WAY was I going to pay this fraudulent charge, in that I did not accept any such collect call! They told me that they would put it in "dispute" and would investigate it. Again, I told them they could "investigate all they want, but that I was not paying this fraudulent bill!" I never received any response back from ZPDI and each month since I have been harrassed by Sprint for this charge!
I have written letters to both Sprint and ZPDI stating I am not paying this bill. But, here again, at the end of March, nearly five months after the initial dispute, I am sending a final written response to Sprint and ZPDI stating that I am not paying this fraudulent charge. I am most disappointed in Sprint because obviously, they are aware that this is an ongoing problem with this company! They should sever any kind of relationship with this company because failure to do so will only result in lost service to them!
Leticia of Chicago writes:
On Thanksgiving Day 2000 I received 2 collect calls from Mexico, they wanted to speak to my father. It was a female claiming it was my cousin's wife. She stated that it was urgent, and therefore the collect call was accepted. Once on the phone she hung up immediately and called again. We then received the phone bill for 2 collect calls from Mexico in the amount of $50.00 each, a total of $100.00.
G. Rincon of Woburn, MA, writes:
On January 9th, 2001 I received a collect call telling me G. Rincon, which is my name, was calling me collect, and asking me if I accepted the charges. As my father's name is the same as mine I accepted the charges, but to my surprise, a completely unknown person started telling me this story. She said she was calling me from California and that she had some letters that because of a mistake in address ended down there.
When I ased her to clarify the way my letters ended down there she told me they were a "lost letters" gathering place or company or something like that. The she asked me for my current address and, again, to my surprise she had a previous address of mine. I never gave her my current address and she finally hung up. Now I received my phone bill, it says that I received a call from Mexicali, MX at a rate of $11 a minute. So with this long story I just told you it ended up being $64.79 more in my bill. I have a double problem then -- someone calling me and telling me they were someone else and this ZPDI charging me all this money for 5 minutes of lies from that woman.
A. Martinez of Utica, NY, writes:
On 12/14/00 my phone rang and I picked up the phone. Operator asked if I would accept the charges for a relative. I asked what is the name of the party, operator was very hesitant. I demanded to know the name of the party before I could accept the charges. Operator was very rude, she said it was a relative.
I asked where is the call coming from. She said from Mexico. I told the operator that it has to be a mistake because I do not have relatives or friends in Mexico. Never have I called Mexico nor been to Mexico. I told her that I will not accept the charges and call ended. At no time did I speak with anyone from Mexico. Before I knew it I got my bill for 5 minute and was charged $55.00.
E. Perez of Oceanside, CA, writes:
On Dec. 14t, 2000, a collect call was made at 12:16a.m., and my husband answered. They asked for E. Perez which is my name. I had one operator transfer me to another international operator. I asked who was making the call, she gave me a name that I did not know and I asked her again who he was looking for and she repeated my name. So I asked her to ask the person making the call who the person was he was trying to contact, and she told me his wife. So, I declined the call to this international Mexican operator because my husband was with me and he answered the phone.
Unfortunately I was still billed for a total of $55.29, that was about 3 min. I am very angry that this has happened to me, and I am refusing to pay for something that I do not believe should have happened.
S. Ortiz of St. Petersburg, FL, writes:
On Sept. 22, 2000 a woman called my home identifying herself as a postal worker from Mexico. She spoke to my husband. She proceeded to inform him that a package had been sent to us from Mexico and it had been sent back to them. She said she was calling from the post office in Mexico to verify my address so she can re-send the package. She read my name, address and phone number to my husband, then asked if the information was correct. He told her it was. She then asked if she could put him on hold for a moment while she looked for the package. She came back on and told him that this may take too long so she would call him back in a few minutes.
About 5 minutes later she called back. She informed my husband that the package in question would be re-sent and gave him a tracer number for the package. Around October 5th, 2000 we received our phone bill. Upon checking the charges on the phone bill I almost had a stroke when I saw the amount of the charges. ZPDI was charging, on behalf of Intelecom, $113.39 for two collect calls from Mexico. My husband never accepted any collect calls. The calls were charged at the rate of $6.00 per min. for 10 min. = $60.00 plus a Location surcharge of $10.00 per call = $20.00 plus Operator charges $10.00 per call = $20.00 plus Federal excise tax at 3% = $3.29 plus Municipal utility tax = $.49 plus Gross receipts tax = $2.56. Total billed: $113.39.
I called both Intelecom and ZPDI on Mon. Oct. 9, 2000 and asked why were they billing me for these calls. They both told me that the matter would be referred to their Billing Dept. and that within 10 days I should receive a response letter. I didn't know who the heck ZPDI was before this happened, so I went on-line and typed in "ZPDI". I was amazed to see all these complaints from so many people who had been scammed the same way we were.
A. Beltran of Rancho Cucamonga, CA, writes:
I received my GTE bill for the month of September 2000 in which ZPDI/Southwest Intelecom was charging me $100 for two 4-minute collect phone calls from Mexico that were never accepted nor do I know anyone in Mexico. In my October bill they once again billed me for another 4-minute phone call for $50. So far they are charging me $150 for phone calls that I have no knowledge of. I called them and they said to me that these phone calls were operator assisted and they did not experience any technical problems on these dates.
I refused to pay for any of these outrageous calls and advised them that if they did not dissapear from my bill there would be consequences. I have read all the complaints for ZPDI in ConsumerAffairs.com and they are all outrageous. This company is stealing from people that accepted these phone calls and also from people that did not accept these phone calls.
B. Gutierrez of Glendale, CA, writes:
ZPDI/Southwest Intelecom processes fraudulent collect calls from Mexico. They charge an initial 5 minute rate of $50.00. My wife denied acceptance of a collect call and it was put through nonetheless. She hung up immediately and we got billed for it. We were charged $50.00 plus taxes. I called ZPDI (their billing agent). I also called SouthWest Intelecom with no results. I am contacting Pacific Bell to have this charge removed.
E. Tapia of Carmichael, CA, writes:
I received a phone call on 11/5/00 stating it was a collect call from M. Tapia. This is my sisters name, so I began to worry and excepted the call. Someone on the other line started to talk and realized it was not my sister and started to ask generic questions about the family. After what I thought was a couple of minutes at the most I became very uncomfortable and ended the conversation. I received my phone by today (11/27/00) with charges of approximately $60.00 for 5 minutes!!! It was $55 for the call and almost $4 for some handling fee. I called ZPDI to protest and all I can get out of them was that they were going to investigate it.
From looking at all the complaints on the Web, my chances for a credit does not look favorable. I am still going to pursue getting my credit, this is a CRIME for not only myself but the others that encountered this!!
L. Garza of Los Angeles writes:
I was getting ready to pay my phone bill and I noticed a $60.00 charge from Zero Plus Dialing on my long distance portion of my bill. When I read the detailed summary, it listed a collect call from Mexico for 5 minutes for $50.00 plus $6.97 in taxes and $3.64 Univ Serv Fee. I do not have relatives or friends in Mexico and in any case neither my husband nor I would have accepted an international collect call from an unknown party. I phoned ZPDI and inquired that we did not accept such a call and the ZPDI operator continually questioned me on who was at my home at the time of the call and other inane questions that I had to answer over and over. I asked her who accepted the call and all she could give me was a first initial and our last name. She told me that she will have it investigated. I told her that I want the charge removed from my bill and she repeated that she is unable to do so because it must be approved by their client Southwest Intelecom and it cannot be done until it is investigated.
I asked for the phone number for Southwest Intelecom and the number she gave me was only a voice mail in which a recorded message announced "that mailbox is full - unable to leave message". I followed the prompt which told me that there was an extended mailbox and when I was connected, it said "That line is busy". I called Pacific Bell to complain and I was told that they would take the charge off my bill but ZPDI may bill me for it again. Three weeks later, I received a letter from ZPDI dated 3 days after my initial inquiry saying they "cannot issue credit due to the following: Collect call(s) placed with operator assistance require acceptance of the call prior to processing. Also, to the best of our knowledge...etc., etc. The same form letter that dozens of complaint victims have received I found as I read through your website. How can this company get away with this scam when there are so many complaints against them? What can I do to fight this?
M. Amador of Cambridge, MA, writes:
I received a collect call from Mexico (I don't have any relatives there neither friends) a month ago. The operator asked if I would accept a phone call from someone with my same last name. I didn't know who the person was, but thought maybe it was something important and I said yes. When the call was connected nobody talked, so I immediatly realized something was wrong and disconnected my phone (I had to disconnect from the wall to be able to close the call). Now I received a billing of $57 for a five-minute call (the actual call lasted less than one minute). I tried to conctact Zero Plus Dialing but nobody picks up the phone and the website doesn't work.
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July 25 2008
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