Payment One review: Unauthorized charges 31

Unauthorized 3rd party billing on a company account.

This company needs to be investigated before they change names again and skip town. The only reason why they haven't been caught is that not enough people catch what's on their bills, and they keep using aliases.

One month after we fought with Qwest to remove charges from PaymentOne, we get charges on our bill from another "company" thebillingresource.com. Same amount $34.95 and nearly the same phone number. [protected] vs [protected]

The first time PaymentOne used a fake company called NetOpus, with fake charges that no one ever authorized. There is no record anywhere of NetOpus.net ever rendering services, and there is little evidence that that company even existed. Now it's a different name, but the same "parent" company, PaymentOne.

Don't let them fool you. Call both #888 numbers and even though the recorded message is slightly different, the live operator will still answer to both company names. SCAM.

PAYMENTONE, INC. HAS BILLED MY PHONE COMPANY, TWIN VALLEY TELEPHONE, WHICH IN TURN BILLED ME, FOR UNAUTHORIZED CHARGES ON BEHALF OF AMERITEL. WHEN I CALLED PAYMENT ONE AT [protected], I AM CONNECTED TO THE CARRIBEAN. THEY GAVE ME A NUMBER IN CALIFORNIA, [protected], THAT GETS YOU BACK TO THE CARRIBEAN. I TALKED TO A SUPERVISOR, KIM, WHO COULD SPEAK PRETTY GOOD ENGLISH. SHE GAVE ME A NUMBER FOR MS. ELIZABETH DENTON, [protected]. SHE ACTUALLY SEEMED TO BE A PRETTY NICE GAL, AND SAID THEY WERE THINKING ABOUT DROPPING AMERITEL, AS THEY WERE GETTING LOTS OF COMPLAINTS. AMERITEL'S ADDRESS IS 137 1/2 WASHINGTON AVENUE, #271, BELLEVILLE, NEW JERSEY 07109. I CALLED THE NUMBER MS. DENTON GAVE ME FOR AMERITEL, [protected]. THAT WAS THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE PEOPLE, ISERVICEWORLD. I THOUGHT THAT WAS A PRETTY APPROPIATE NAME, FOR A BUNCH OF RUN AROUND DEAD BEATS. TALKED TO A GIRL NAMED TANI, WHO WOULD NOT GIVE ME A NUMBER FOR AMERITEL IN BELLEVILLE, NJ. IF ANYONE CAN PROVIDE ME WITH AMERITELS NUMBER IN BELLEVILLE, NJ, I WOULD LIKE TO TALK TO THESE DEADBEATS. I'VE CONTACTED THE KANSAS ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE, WHO ARE GETTING QUITE A LARGE FOLDER ON THESE COMPANIES. ISN'T IT AMAZING YOU CAN'T TALK TO THE PEOPLE WHO ARE BILLING YOU FOR SERVICES THAT YOU DID NOT ORDER...THEY SEEM TO HAVE ALL AVENUES COVERED. IS THIS ISN'T A SCAM, I'VE NEVER SEEN ONE. IF ANY OF YOU ARE HAVING PROBLEMS WITH AMERITEL OR PAYMENT ONE OR I SERVICE WORLD, I SUGGEST YOU CALL THE NUMBERS I HAVE PROVIDED. I WILL BE CONTACTING MANY MORE PEOPLE CONCERNING THIS TOMORROW.

We've been dealing with this PaymentOne Corp scam, too, through AT & T third-party billing. Unfortunately, I trusted AT& T and assumed that the first and second payments I made to AT & T had to do with our cellular phone replacements. Which, of course, shouldn't have been the case since the wireless is a separate bill. When I caught it in November, I complained to an AT&T customer service rep who said the charge would be "reversed" but that PaymentOne might bill us directly. "Fine, " I thought, "since I wouldn't pay anything to PaymentOne anyway as we have no connection with them." But this month, the new AT&T bill lists that unpaid PaymentOne charge of November as "Over Due" and includes an additional $40.75 from PaymentOne. We are on the National Do Not Call list since 2003. PaymentOne argues that they contacted us by phone and we agreed to their "directory" service. This is simply false. We routinely hang up on callers who are soliciting or tell them we're on the Do Not Call List before hanging up. Nor do we ever participate in any surveys over the phone; others say that they got charged monthly after participating in what they believed was an innocuous survey. I've read horror stories online of others trying to deal directly with PaymentOne. I've written letters of complaint to the CPUC and other agencies. I've also read that one PaymentOne founding executive is a former VP of Customer Service from AT&T. It's likely this is a major corporate scam comparable to the fraud perpetrated on ENRON investors. It is an ill-conceived law that permits a public utility company to charge on behalf of a third-party monthly payments just on the submission by that third party of a name, address and phone number. I've read other accounts by victims of being played falsified recordings that PaymentOne purports are recordings of the customer requesting their services. These white collar criminals need to be brought to justice and put behind bars. Since when did this country hand over to big, monopoly corporations the legal right to scam ordinary citizens? We worry that AT&T will cut our land line services over this. You might say switch to another phone company. But AT&T owns our DSL lines even though we pay for ISP DSL services to a small, independent company that we like better because of its honest and helpful tech support. Our ISP has told us that if we disconnect from AT&T our residential phone service we will lose our DSL connection. That's another legal sticky wicket where the government is not monitoring or is turning a blind eye to violations of FCC rulings. My next step is to send a letter to the CEO, Chairman and President of AT&T with copies sent to PaymentOne, the CPUC, our California Attorney General, Govenor, state senator, and local congressional house rep, and the White House, etc. But I won't hold my breath. Obviously, legal criminal minds are running the show and passing legislation that's very bad for ordinary, law-abiding citizens and wonderful for white coller criminal minds that see the opportunity to make billions (which they are in fact making) with their tap into the honey pot of a typical household bill. We've signed a retainer with an attorney preparing a class action case against PaymentOne and AT&T. I hope it leads to a federal case that will end up putting all these executive-criminals in federal prison for decades. -Fairfield, CA

Follow Up from A. Malchiodi: On Monday, Dec. 14, 2009, we sent via registered mail letters to the three top AT&T executives at the Dallas headquarters. We also sent via registered mail copies of the letter to AT&T, with cover letters, to the CEO of PaymentOne, various politicians who are supposed to represent us, the US and CA Attorney Generals, and a few news organizations urging them to look into this scam. Since PaymentOne is headquartered not far from our home, the got the mail right away. The very next day, they called our home but my husband wouldn't pick up after seeing the caller ID for two reasons: we have not legal business relationship with PaymentOne and we've read the reports of the fabricated voice recordings. A few days later, AT&T called and over three days in two phone conversations, AT&T credited our account for the erroneous payments to PaymentOne and promised to block our line from third party charges. PaymentOne made a couple of more phone call attempts and finally was forced to write us. We received a letter from Boris Gutierrez, Consumer Relations Manager, claiming no connection to Directory Services Group (their client on whose behalf they said they billed us) and included a CD with a wave file that was a complete fabrication. It has an extremely fast- talking salesperson (clearly reading quickly from a script and probably used over and over again for the scam that others have reported hearing) getting confirmation from my husband for a business arrangement. It is a conversation that NEVER took place in real life. It is a complete fraud. If there is anyone with a justice department or employed by a reputable news organization who had the sophisticated equipment that can analyze the wave file an prove our assertions of fraud, we would love to hear from you. Upon confirmation of your identity, we would provide you with the file that's on the cd. These scoundrels must be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and should spend years behind bars. It is no longer "buyer beware", our new technology (that has been all too quickly embraced by lawmakers) has made us all lambs to be led to slaughter, e.g. an indefinite term of time business contract, through monthly phone bills, no longer requires a written contract or signature from the customer. A (fabricated) voice agreement is sufficient to tap anyone in the USA with a monthly bill for something they never heard of or wanted.

I had the same thing happen to me. I had to call AT&T to reverse the charges and Payment One and told them to never charge my phone number for "Online Enterpreneur" ISP service. This is criminal I told the Payment One Representative, how could they work for a criminal organization. The Payment One rep gave me a cancellation confirmation number, I told her I don't want to see any more bills from their company appearing on my phone bill. Be very careful, Payment One listed this $19.99 charge as a monthly fee for dial up internet. This people are dishonest, why would I purchase a dial up service when on the same AT&T Bill I have a DSL pro service. Let's start a class action lawsuit against this fraudsters.

On our AT&T bill was a charge from PaymentOne Corp. for $15.84. We had never heard of the company until our bill came. We called AT&T & they said they were acting on behalf of PaymentOne. We called PaymentOne & they told us someone using my email authorized their service. Not true! PaymentOne says they will send us a check for 14 something, but not the taxes AT&T charged. Scam!

We also are regularly ripped off by PaymentOne Corp., because the worst part is, IT IS A MONTHLY CHARGE!

We have to go through hell and report them EVERY MONTH!

FCC are you listening? Shut these scammers down! NOW! We pay you our hard earned tax dollars, now do your damned job. Shut down PaymentOne and all of their henchmen NOW!

Or is it time to do a personnel housecleaning at the FCC just as in Congress? Not a problem, we'll be happy to make it so.

The same thing happened to me. I was told by AT&T customer service that they have every right to put third party bills on the AT&T bill.
I think the real question should be:
What law allows utilities to put charges on your telephone bill without any paperwork (or authoriztion) whatsoever?
If there is law, who created it?
I am awaiting a return call from CPUC public advisors office to try to discover the answer to this question.

We discovered the EXACT fraudulent scam on our Atlanta, GA AT&T business telephone bill. We found that PaymentOne (from San Jose, CA) had put fraudulent charges on our AT&T bill. PaymentOne said the bill came from Ameritel in Bellville, NJ. We called Ameritel and discovered they were trying to charge us for phoney web services that we never requested. I spoke with Shamara. She sounded like a crook with no conscience. I requested to speak with the Manager, Shantay. She said we must have asked for those phoney services. I told her we NEVER requested them. I asked her if she is in business to steal from people. She would not respond. I told her that her company is stealing money from us each month. She did not seem to care. Then I told her that we contacted the following Federal Authorities to file complaints and investigations against Ameritel: FCC [protected] fcc.gov, Federal Trade Commission, Public Service Commision, Govenors Office of Consumer Affairs, BBB of New Jersey, the Atty General of Georgia. I HIGHLY SUGGEST ANY PERSON WHO EXPERIENCES THESE SCAMS CONTACT THE SAME AUTHORITIES TO FILE COMPLAINTS. We also contacted the IRS, becuase we wanted the IRS to know about all the money these scammers were taking in. Good luck to these ###. Let them try to scam their way out of this.

I just opened my phone bill and discovered a charge from paymentone corp and could not get through to anyone. after looking them up on line I am not hopeful calling them will do any good. thank you for the information previous posted in comments. I maybe calling them. How does att put them on the bill. they have got to be connected to this scam somehow.?

Same thing happend my company also.They been charge $34.95 evry month.I just fined out and i call and They give me 2 months refund.Best things to do check phone bill every months.I think Verizon also helping them.They should not be charge any penny with out Authorized signature.I will change soon ASAP verizon
I think Verizon also partner with them make money with this froud.This is my apenion...This is looks all over the USA. FCC need to wake up and smell the coffe.

also if you saw any charges from secure direct inc you can call them at [protected] and they can return charges back to you what happend is i called them and they told me that someone authorized them to charge me 39.95 even this peron doesnt work for my company and i dont know this person if you go after the charges you can get back them as a credit the are the biggest steff ever.

An update to my post ... our government is at it again, apparently it is perfectly legal to do this - charge to your phone number. I put in a complaint with the public utilities commission here in California and also to the FCC in D.C. That gets a response real fast from AT&T and I am happy to report that they have not charged me any more in the following months.

This is ridiculous. I'm a 17 year old girl and my mother was very upset and stressed over this random bill. She was charged $19.99 from "Extreme Biz" with a 2. 00 fee. We are a single income home. My mother is diabetic and has been suffering certain complications from it. We're not doing very well financially. It disgusts me that these people are trying to steal money from her and other people. She might've paid it if I hadn't told her. What can I personally do to help destroy these terrible people? Also, she's called and Payment One has agreed to send a check in the mail. Has anyone else done the same and recieved their check? It's really ### that she's still stuck paying taxes on it.

Same story here, I now have a $130.00 charge on my at&t statement every month because of these crooks!Payment One are rip off artists!Still waiting for "MY CHECK"! Now I have to pay interest and taxes every month due to this charge, , , I'm not paying this charge or fee because I didn't authorize this. CLASS ACTION LAW SUIT! Count me in.

49.99 charge appeared on our AT&T bill; listed as "Green Management Tools monthly charge". After further investigation I found out that it was done by PaymentOne and was what is called a "third party billing". I found your website by keying in PaymentOne on google, so I read the other complaints. They sound very similar to what happened to us. My husband will talk with telemarketers and people who call doing "surveys" (hopefully, not anymore!); I always either don't answer when I don't recognize the number or I hang up as soon as I find out it's a telemarketer. Incidentally, we've been on the do not call list for the past 6-8 years, so mostly what we get are charities but I suspect a lot of these "surveys" are just a way for these scammers to get around the do not call restrictions. When I finally spoke to someone at PaymentOne, he said his name was "Harry" but he had such a heavy accent (possibly from India?)that he had to spell his name before I could understand it. I don't think Harry's a name that's very common where this guy is from so I have no doubt it's a fake name. Anyway, I voiced my complaint and told him that my husband would NEVER authorize $50/month for anything like what it sounds like PaymentOne does. Actually, when you go to their website, it's hard to discern what the company does, because the overview is a lot of corporate mumbo-jumbo that could mean just about anything. "Harry" played a recording of my husband supposedly authorizing the charges. It sounded like his voice saying his name, the name of his construction business, and that he was the owner. He says "yes" when he is asked if he authorizes a charge of $49.99/month and also says yes when he's asked if our phone # is correct. The only problem is that our phone # is NOT correct, only the area code and 5 numbers instead of 7. All of his "yeses" sound exactly the same, so they patched a tape together from the "survey" my husband thought he was participating in. Of course, our 30-day refund date had already passed (we got the phone bill 5 weeks after this was charged) and we'd already been billed another $49.99 for the month of May. I told "Harry" in no uncertain terms that I wouldn't be paying anything whatsoever, I didn't care how many days had passed, and that I would be filing a complaint with our state attorney general's office and with AT&T. He agreed to "reverse" the charges and gave me a confirmation # for the cancellation and was supposed to send me an email confirming the cancellation. That was 24 hours ago and I've received no email. Fortunately, I called AT&T and didn't have any problem with the rep I spoke with. AT&T will let me put a "third party billing block" on my account but I have to wait until the credit appears on my account before I can do that because it will block not only more charges but any credits as well. At any rate, PaymentOne and the companies who are affilliated with them are second rate, fly by night scammers who obviously can't get business through ethical practices so they resort to theft, essentially. Someone please investigate them!

Update: I was called this afternoon by a rep from AT&T who assured me that she was placing a block on my phone bill and was crediting my account for the $49.99. She said she would also credit me for the additional charge for the month of May if/when PaymentOne attempts to bill me. I told her that a friend of mine had complained about the same thing happening to her, but it was a while before she noticed it on her bill so she may have paid several months for a charge she didn't incur. The AT&T rep told me that they can go back 3 years to credit an account for a wrongful charge so I called my friend and told her to call them and see what could be done. I have to say that AT&T has been great in their handling of this; of course, I haven't seen my next month's bill yet but I believe that they will back up what they say. I also filed a complaint with out state's attorney general's office but have yet to hear from them.

I too just discovered a $53.00 fraudulent charge on my Frontier Bill for our alarm line from PaymentOne. The billing was suppose to be on behalf of Comp-U-Support located at 500 Trinity Ln, Apt 17202, St Petersburg. We have never heard of this company, and would never bill to our alarm line!
I contacted Frontier and they have removed the charge and blocked my account from any third party charges.

I got my AT&T phone bill today and there was a charge of $52.99 from Green Chamber, LLC, under Green Management Tools as a monthly charge first posted on6-24-2011. It was posted by PaymentOne Corp..
I, too, have been getting solicitors calling my home even though I call the DO NOT CALL REGISTRY every time I start getting these calls. Look out for the next political season...
AT&T removed the charge from my statement and put a block on 3rd party billing for me instantly.
I tried to call the number for Green Chamber, LLC [protected]) and PaymentOne Corporation [protected]) and was told "No Agents Available, Call again later".
I plan to file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau to help prevent others from having this unfortunate experience.

If you are being billed by PaymentOne and have questions about the charge(s) and are not able to reach our merchant, please contact PaymentOne directly.

Contact PaymentOne Consumer Relations Department by email at Consumerhelp@paymentone.com or by calling us at [protected]
[Mon-Fri 8AM-4:30PM PST]

I am a class action and consumer fraud attorney. I am interested in learning more information about PaymentOne and potentially unlawful phone bill charges.
Please comment below or email me at jkoerth@creditfraudlaw.com. www.creditfraudlaw.com

I am a consumer fraud and class action attorney. I am interested in hearing more information about PaymentOne and potentially unlawful phone bill charges. Please comment below or email me at jkoerth@creditfraudlaw.com
creditfraudlaw.com

PaymentOne is a billing aggregator which provides billing services to hundreds of merchant companies.

If you are being billed by PaymentOne and have questions about the charge(s) and are not able to reach our merchant, please contact PaymentOne directly.

Contact PaymentOne Consumer Relations Department by email at Consumerhelp@paymentone.com or by calling us at [protected]
[Mon-Fri 8AM-4:30PM PST]

I am an AT&T Customer. I contacted AT&T and requested they process as Recourse Charge against Paymentone; I then requested that all 3rd Party charges be blocked. Paymentone, or Virtual-Data-Secure, or whoever lied to claim this payment, needs to be shot, hung, stabbed, or all three.

I am a Frontier customer in Rochester, NY. I received bills from PaymentOne for$19.99 on behalf of "Pathway Profits". I probably paid several months worth of these charges before I really paid attention to my bill.
When I phoned Frontier to ask what these charges were, they initially told me to contact PaymentOne, directly. I replied that I would no longer accept any 3rd party billing on my phone bill and that I wanted a "third party block" on my account. They immediately did this for me and removed the charge from my current bill. I plan on filing complaints to the NYS Attorney General's Office. PaymentOne is supporting a scam and so is the telephone company.

10/7 AT&T Customer-had 3rd party charge of $39.95 show up on my bill from ALLONLINE.COM LLC with a web address of wwwpaymentone.com --AT&T advised me to threaten them with BBB complaint telling me that they are famous for fraud by calling and asking to verify your business information so they can record you saying "Yes". After listening to Jason from their company say my name after every couple of words he spoke I told just cancel me and refund the 39.95 or I will report to the BBB. He finally gave me a cancellation #. He told me they we providing us with SEO services by listing us under a couple of local listing companies. That was a joke because I have already done that about a month ago and no one else handles the advertising other than me. He told me he would still list us for free with his company but could not tell me what the name would be under ...what a joke...I told him take me out of the free listing we wanted nothing to do with his company what ever name they go by. I called AT&T and put a Third Party Block on and they are sending the bogus charges back to ALLONLINE.COM LLC. There is no charge for the third party block. What a scam.

To whom it may concern,

PaymentOne is a billing aggregator which provides billing services to hundreds of merchant companies. If you received charges from PaymentOne on behalf of our merchant, 800AllOnline.com on your telephone statement and were unable to resolve this with them. We would like the opportunity to handle this for you, so please contact PaymentOne Consumer Relations Department by email at Consumerhelp@paymentone.com or by calling us at [protected].
[Mon-Fri 8AM-4:30PM PST

I had 199.90 from 2 months of alleged service from them. They called wanting my credit card number and when I refused they billed me through at&t. WHAT A SCAM! Get your money the honest way...EARN IT! DONT JUST ROB PEOPLE!

I got bills from verizon with PaymentOne, charges $49.95 for Comp-U-Support---a service I didn't request. I remember they called in, and I said I am only a customer service representative. Then they asked me to verify my office location to send my some information about the service---- nothing about the extra charges! after a few weeks, they send in a letter and a card, asking me to activate the service. I never called in to activate te service, but now they start to charge me for the unknown service. What a scam! As a customer service representative on the phone, i have no authorization in making decisions in relate to business decisions, and i certainly did not agree to having additional services. Why in such a well- developed country, with a sound legal system, have such a wide-spread scam for years? How come large companies like Verizon help keeping these unlawful phone crimes active?

Payment ONE billed our swim club 105.00 on behalf of EB interactive when I called Verizon they referred me to PAYMENT ONE and I spoke to Michael, a Senior Account MGR, (probably not his real name). He was the the rudest, most unhelpful robot I have ever spoken too. He insisted that the SOMEONE must have said it was ok, they just know these kinds of things. Don't ask for a supervisor at Payment One, they don't have any, only Michael the SR ACCT MGR.
Finally, I called Verizon back and they agreed to take care of it.
Oh btw I forgot to mention that EB Interactive guarantees prominent website placement WE DON'T HAVE A WEBSITE. Yeah we must have ok'd this.