I called GetConnected to make an inquiry about their rates & services. After talking to a female rep, I said that I would go back and look at their online sign up, and if I decided to pay for their service, I would sign up online. She then told me it would be better if I would go through her right then, that she would take my information and payment, and this would help facilitate calls faster. That "sounded" reasonable, (although I should have listened to my intuition), but after finally agreeing to sign up and pay for the basic monthly fee, and giving the rep my acct. info for payment, it was only then that she told me I would be charged a one time set up fee of $12.97. I said I wouldn't agree to the extra charges, which would make the full charges $33. I told her to cancel my sign up. Then, without saying anything more, a man's voice came on and proceeded to go over the charges again. I asked if he knew whether the facility where my relative inmate was staying would accept GetConnected as a long distance server. He assured me there would be no problem. However, when I went ahead and agreed over the phone, I later found that the facility only accepted phone cards or collect calls, and would not allow the GetConnected service to go through their system. So, then I went back online to read their terms of service, and found it said that it was the customer's responsibility to find out whether the correctional facility where the inmate was located would accept GetConnected services, which of course, I'd had no prior knowledge because on the phone, the GetConnected rep had urged me to sign up with her rather than going back online to look at their site, and read their terms of service. So, in this case, since I signed up via the telephone, I feel it was GetConnected's responsibility to inform me that I should call the inmate's facility FIRST to check and see whether they would accept GetConnected's services. Again, keep in mind that I was hustled through this telephonic signup and not informed of their terms of service about this. Also, the terms of service said that there would be no refunds of the basic set up fees in such cases. In my opinion, it's clear that GetConnected is if not down right fraudulent in their business practices, they are deliberately misleading. Now, I have not been able to contact them by phone asking for a full refund. There is only a voice recording on their number. Nor are they responding to my e-mail. Looking online, I find other consumers complaining about this company, not getting refunds, or having refunds seriously delayed in being returned, and being treated disrespectfully by company reps. Where there's smoke, there is usually fire. Yes, I think there's a case for a class action law suit, and I will be the first to add my name.
