At&t let a third party charge me $9.99 without my consent

FIrst of all, what happened to jorn_k comment?  I thought that was a fair comment and should not be censored.  

Secondly, I do appreciate that you left my comment in, albeit I got the {keep it courteous} stamp.

So now that I've resolved this issue again with at&t by calling them and asking for $9.99 credit and placing blocks on all 10 of my lines, I would like to ask a question.

Why does this 3rd party billing practice still exist after many years of complaints, and at&t telling customers it's fraud, spam, and immediately owning up to it by crediting the charges back, and placing blocks to prevent this from happening again.

Doesn't the practice of billing your customers for random and deceitful charges give at&t a bad name?  Why does at&t continue to support this practice?  Just google "at&t subscription scam" and see the 7.3 Million results returned.

I'd love to hear why this keeps going on.

The previous comment was removed because it violated a tenet of our Community Guidelines. Please send me a private message if you would like additional information. To send a private message, click on the little blue envelope in the upper right hand corner, click "compose new message" and type my username in the "Send To" field.

There are many 3rd party companies who provide services people like. Unfortunately, there are bad apples in that group and AT&T is actively working to remove them. 

Your help in doing so by reporting spam text messages is very appreciated. 

Thanks for the response jamileh.

Back to the subject.  Do you think it's a fair practice to text someone and say if you don't respond to this, you will be charged $9.99 per month.  For many people, they just paid for a spam text, and then you expect them to pay for another text by replying STOP.  

This is like me walking up to a girl in a bar and telling her that I will grope you unless you say stop in 10 seconds.   If I grope her because she didn't say stop in 10 seconds,does that give me the right to do that?  This at&t practice is backwards.  Customers should only be charged for something they explicitly say yes to, not the other way around.

Serously

To clarify, reporting spam texts does not count against your texting package. 

I agree that we need to get rid of these spammers and I understand the frustration around how the process works. 

This thread is one I always keep an eye on because the more feedback I provide, the better equiped we are to make that a reality. 

I see all these AT&T employees on here telling everyone that AT&T doesn't just bill without reason or justification or without we customers consenting or signing up for something.  Yet, I just got off of an hour-long phone call with AT&T where I was told by both a rep and his supervisor that in fact AT&T DOES bill customers the minute a 3rd party bills them and they do not verify anything with the 3rd Party!

In fact, I was told that it's the customer's responsibility to dispute things and only then do they bother contacting the 3rd party.

So basically AT&T's official answer is that if someone says charge Customer-X they will and only if they don't manage to sneak it by the customer and that customer notices that AT&T and their cohorts are stealing from them will they bother to do anything.

Thanks, at least in most places when someone gives it to you up the rear they're nice enough to give a reach around!

[Edited to comply with Guidelines]

You are woefully misinformed. There are too many people who have complained about it and I am one of them. If I used my phone or even had cell service, that weak explaination MIGHT have been possible, but the phone sits in my car waiting for an emergency. I don't give the number out since I don't use it. So tell me how I could've authorized a subscription to a company that I've never heard of, to a phone I don't use, in a place where I don't have service.

If AT&T is getting paid for service then they need to live up to it. PROTECT YOUR CUSTOMERS!

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@Charlie713 wrote:
YOU need to understand that you don't have to "AUTHORIZE IT" the spammers are just doing it for us. Get a clue!

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Actually you are the one that is mis-informed - all of them bury a authorization to bill wording in their services. Normally in 2 or 3 pages of text that you need to scroll through. Sometimes it is set so that if you do not respond to the text you automaticly give them authorization to bill, in some case like on facebook there are "intelligence quizes" that you can take for fun, the text that majority of peope never read is that if you take the quiz and do not do something after to prevent the billing you will be billed a re-occurring charge for more quizes. The favorite ply is "Download FREE ringtone/wallpaper/music for your phone!!! What you don't see in the wall of text is the simple statement that goes something like this "By utilizing this download you agree to a monthly subscription charge to access the service"

In the end you are agreeing, you just don;t take the time to read or understand what they are telling you in the wall of text.

" if you do not respond to the text you automaticly give them authorization to bill"

This is the one that's complete FRAUD.  I have been nailed by this one over and over again and at&t continues to permit it.  Yes, they permit it and encourage it becuase they are paid commission.

If you have a cell phone that is barely used and get a text message that you don't know you got, at&t allows themself to then bill you.  

This is illegal and at&t shouldbe held accountable.

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@PorterRanch wrote:

" if you do not respond to the text you automaticly give them authorization to bill"

This is the one that's complete FRAUD.  I have been nailed by this one over and over again and at&t continues to permit it.  Yes, they permit it and encourage it becuase they are paid commission.

 

If you have a cell phone that is barely used and get a text message that you don't know you got, at&t allows themself to then bill you.  

 

This is illegal and at&t shouldbe held accountable.

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really - they specificly state it in the text that you probably did not read - how exactly again is this Fraud? You can supply validated documentation that the carrier recieves "commision" or is it just an assumption on your part. Finnally, it is not illgeal unless you have some proof, it occurrs on all carriers, there is no law against it.

Bottom line - before you accept anything read it and understand it, if that does not happen there is only one party to put the blame on.

Want to stop it 100 percent - call ATT and ask them to put a purchase block on the phone, then there is very little that can be charged to your account