USBI ripoff Dallas Texas

I just had an experience with USBI or US Telecom, or whatever it is their company name. In my SBC phone bill it's USBI, but when I called their customer service it's US Telecom. I realized that they have been charging me with all the long distance calls that I made, and as far as I know, I had SBC/AT&T long distance.

I called and they said that I have agreed over the phone to switch over to their company. They even said that they have a recording of me agreeing to that switch. So I told them, okey fine, but now I want this service cancelled and I'm going back to AT&T long distance, because for the past 4-6 weeks, I haven't been able to make long distance calls.

Everytime I try to dial my parents' number in Indonesia, it just cuts me off. And it had been like that for 4-6 weeks, like I mentioned earlier. This was August 2nd, that I called to cancel this service. Today, October 20th, I called them again. I told them that I had called and cancelled the service (which they told me was on August 2nd), but I'm still getting all these service charges and single bill charges and all this bologna..

They refuse to take off the charges because they said that they don't prorate. According to them, these charges dated August 31st are valid because I had a "bundle" package, which means I get a certain amount of minutes with the same charge everymonth. I told them that it's unfair for them to charge me all these charges, if I haven't been able to use the service since over a month even before I called to cancel.

Even in the bill before the last bill, all my long distance charges were already with AT&T, which means that I have already switch back and cancelled USBI. Not to mention this last bill, dated September 19. However, they insist that those charges are valid, even though I cancelled the service on August 2nd, and even though even since June I wasn't able to make long distance calls when I needed to.

I know that it's not a lot of charges. The last bill showed a charge of $8.70 plus tax, and the bill before that only $6.57 plus tax. However, under my economic situation, those $15 is alot. With those $15 I can buy groceries to feed my family of 4. But of course, that's no big deal to some big telephone company who make their money by charging people for services that don't work, or that they don't have anymore.

Arlene
North Hollywood, California
U.S.A.