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Pay phone credit card scam
May. 27th, 2013 04:42 pmDon't make long-distance calls from a pay telephone using a credit card. Seriously.
A month ago, I needed to make a couple of phone calls from my hotel in Mississauga to Ottawa. Since the hotel tacks on a surcharge to make such calls from its rooms, I figured I'd save myself a couple of dollars by using the Bell pay phones in the lobby.
The charges appeared on this month's credit card statement. The charges were applied by a company I'd never heard of, WiMac Tel, in Calgary. A 2-minute call on Friday evening was billed at $12.72; a 1-minute call on Sunday afternoon billed at $11.49 . Mississauga-to-Ottawa, off-peak hours; the charges should probably have been more like $0.72 and $0.49 .
Apparently Bell outsources long-distance pay-phone calls on credit cards to this other outfit, which tacks on ludicrous surcharges, with no warning. My research on the net indicates that WiMac claims that callers are given notice of the charges in advance, in a message on the phone. This was certainly not true for the calls I made. I'm obsessive about such things; I would have listened to such a message and checked for details.
BMO MasterCard would not allow me to dispute the charges. Since I gave Bell my credit card number and they provided the service (or, to be more precise, the service was provided), it was out of BMO's hands, even though the service was provided in a way I had not authorized via an expensive third party. BMO told me that I needed to take the matter up with Bell.
I spent some time wandering through the maze on Bell's website, trying to find some way of contacting them about pay-phone service. There isn't one. I gave up and called the contact number for home-phone service. I think I was lucky that I reached a Bell customer-service rep who was on my side. He will be applying a refund for the credit-card charges towards my next bill from Bell, for internet service.
But... sheesh. I'm not impressed by BMO. Nor, in general, by Bell, though that's nothing new.
A month ago, I needed to make a couple of phone calls from my hotel in Mississauga to Ottawa. Since the hotel tacks on a surcharge to make such calls from its rooms, I figured I'd save myself a couple of dollars by using the Bell pay phones in the lobby.
The charges appeared on this month's credit card statement. The charges were applied by a company I'd never heard of, WiMac Tel, in Calgary. A 2-minute call on Friday evening was billed at $12.72; a 1-minute call on Sunday afternoon billed at $11.49 . Mississauga-to-Ottawa, off-peak hours; the charges should probably have been more like $0.72 and $0.49 .
Apparently Bell outsources long-distance pay-phone calls on credit cards to this other outfit, which tacks on ludicrous surcharges, with no warning. My research on the net indicates that WiMac claims that callers are given notice of the charges in advance, in a message on the phone. This was certainly not true for the calls I made. I'm obsessive about such things; I would have listened to such a message and checked for details.
BMO MasterCard would not allow me to dispute the charges. Since I gave Bell my credit card number and they provided the service (or, to be more precise, the service was provided), it was out of BMO's hands, even though the service was provided in a way I had not authorized via an expensive third party. BMO told me that I needed to take the matter up with Bell.
I spent some time wandering through the maze on Bell's website, trying to find some way of contacting them about pay-phone service. There isn't one. I gave up and called the contact number for home-phone service. I think I was lucky that I reached a Bell customer-service rep who was on my side. He will be applying a refund for the credit-card charges towards my next bill from Bell, for internet service.
But... sheesh. I'm not impressed by BMO. Nor, in general, by Bell, though that's nothing new.
