Merchant Technical Solutions Charge On My AT&T Phone Bill Unauthorized charge Clearwater Florida

I am a small business that have Internet and phone service with AT&T including 888 toll free number. This month I noticed my bill was higher than usual about little over $100. When I went online viewing my monthly statement, I found two charges of $49.95 by ILD Teleservices, Inc.

I called their 800 number to investigate and was told ILD is third party service collecting funds for MERCHANT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS and they gave me their toll free number to call 866-473-2053. Well, I called them and was told that I had agreed to a marketing call on May 30th for their service of Computer Technical Support and they have recording of this agreement that they can play back for me. I don't know why I would need computer technical service when I am computer technician myself for the last 12 years.

Regardless, they called me back after 2 days and played the recording for me to listen to. However, not the whole conversation, only the part where they made me listen to other recorded message where they say about 2-3 pages worth of words in like 20 seconds. I asked other than making me listen to this recording on May 30th which there is no way I could have understood, where is the part where someone explained to me what I was about to agree on or what the service was or what the monthly charges were going to be? I asked can you play the conversation from the beginning of the phone call to end? They said no we can only play the part you just heard. Obviously this is their deceptive way of making you fall into their trap.

They depend on you not understanding the fast speaking recorded message, which is where one would be agreeing to their service yet nowhere before or after the recorded message they tell you what you are agreeing on or explain anything at all.

Any way, they canceled the service and refunded $49.95 only for one month so I lost one-month fee of $49.95.

Then I called AT&T and complained to them on how and why would a reputable giant company like AT&T get involved or allow such bad name company as MERCHANT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS to add charges to my phone bill without AT&T verifying and confirming such service from this so called third party company MERCHANT TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS? AT&T apologized to me and said they will issue a refund of amount $107.39 (2x $49.95 + Taxes) to my account and issue a claim for refund with the third party. I will check my phone bill next month to see if get the refund and report back here.

From now on, any time I get marketing calls I simply say NOT INTERESTED and ask them to remove our company number from their calling list. I don't understand how thieves like these stay in business and keep on steeling from public.

Gorgius
Chicago, Illinois
U.S.A.