I received a $12.95 charge on my Verizon bill by Enchanced Services Billing on behalf of ROCKET COMMUNICATION which stated something like "Internet Fax and Voice mail charge".
I called Verizon and they informed me that per FCC law other companies can bill to my phone number resulting in a charge on my phone bill. They suggested calling ROCKET COMMUNICATION to find out what it was.
I called ROCKET COMMUNICATION and the first thing that I heard was: "if you would like to cancel the service...". That smelled outrageously fishy to me, so did not use the automated system but went through to a live representative and most suprisingly they were NOT able to locate my account by any means (phone numbers, email, or name). The lady said that they would forward to an inquiry to the main office and investigate it. (by the way her voice seemed to use some kind of "voice changing", because it sounded very unnatural).
I then called ESBI and even more suprisingly they (the billing company) could not locate my record either. They started asking for more info as if to try to locate the account. I declined to provide any more information.
Instead I called back Verizon and after I explained what I found earlier, they were very nice to credit my account for that amount (warning that Rocket may bill directly). I'm not afraid of that, since they don't have a record of me, right?
Also I asked Verizon to decline any future charges to my phone number, so I can deal with any such scam directly. I will strongly suggest to anyone reading this report that they call their phone company and use that option (they should be required to do that by law). Even if you never had these kind of problems, do it--you never know what you next bill will look like, as long as jerks like Rocket Communications are around.
Here is their info:
Rocket Communication Services, Inc.
334 E. Lake Rd
Suite 232
Palm Harbor, Florida 34685
www.rocketvoicemail.com
Dmitriy
Portland, Oregon
U.S.A.