Verizon ripped us off. They overcharged us for a bunch of services we didn't ask for, and couldn't use. When we called them to discuss it and have the charges removed, they argued that we had signed an agreement to keep those services for a certain amount of time. There was a lot of battling over it and finally were told it would be dealt with. We didn't get any more paperwork on it for over 2 years and then suddenly we get a collections note for the $200 they said we owed them. There's no account number on the collections notice, and I've since chucked all the stuff from our account, as it was 3 years ago that we had the account with them, so I don't have an account number to work with.. But everytime I try to call Verizon and talk to someone, they only have automated services with no way to talk to a real person, and they keep asking over and over for an account number --- WHICH I DON'T HAVE ANYMORE!!!!!! It's infuriating and now that it's in collections, it's like this massive amount of redtape trying to find who I'm supposed to deal with over it. DH and I have come to the point where we're just going to pay it off and take our losses.. It was $200 we never were responsible for, but it's totally decimating our credit at the moment, and that's really important for us to fix right now. But I will NEVER EVER do business with them again. NEVER.

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Wow! I think I'll check my phone bill in the morning. We just moved in to our house and who knows what is on our bill. Thanks for sharing your story!

i had alomost the same problem with mci. we were moving and i was switching our phone to the new apartment and it was not turned on for about three months and they were charging us because the never disconnected it form our old apartment. everytime we called about the phone we were using a cell that you pay for every minute thta you use. so i had to report them to the bbb and then they finally refunded my account and reimbursed me for my cell bill. i will never use them again, i will stick with the cable company

We have BellSouth also. We have the area plus plan that we pay about $50.00 a month for and we get free long distance within a 50 mile radius, caller ID, 3 way calling, call waiting and we don't even use half the services that comes with that. I've thought about calling and dropping it to reduce our bill. For long distance, we usually buy those prepaid AT&T cards from Sam's for about $20 and they have like 800 minutes on them. They usually last us a long time. The phone companies and cell phone companies are such rip-offs. They're always sticking all these extra charges that you have to pay for and don't even know what they're for. But we can't live without our phones.