rwp@cup.portal.com (Roger William Preisendefer) (11/14/89)
A word of warning to all current and potential PC Pursuit subscribers. I cancelled my account as of May 31, in writing over a month in advance, and they are STILL billing me! The account was definitely cancelled. I tried it two weeks into June, and it was closed. However, the bills kept coming. When PC Pursuit raised the rates, they sent out a card for everyone to sign, authorizing them to bill a credit card account. I did not return this card. I specifically withdrew authorization to debit my credit card when I cancelled my account (also in writing.) I gave them until two months after the cancellation date to clear up any outstanding charges. The date passed, but the bills keep coming! I sent them a registered letter explaining the situation, and again denied them authorization to debit my account. They ignored the letter. This month, I got my account statement, and lo and behold, another $30 charge from PC Pursuit! The credit card company marked the first two charges as disputed, and I assume they will so mark the third when I notify them tomorrow. I am also going to have them treat it as a stolen card and change the account number. This will not get the $90 back from Telenet, however. Making charges to a credit card account without the owners consent is theft through credit card fraud. After all of the correspondence (registered and otherwise) I can only assume that it is deliberate, with criminal intent, or a result of extreme incompetence. Are the savings in connect charges (much less after the rate hike and cap) worth giving your credit card number to thieves or, at best, incompetents? I doubt it. Before you sign up for PC Pursuit or recommend it to someone, consider the risks. You may end up paying more in the long run! Roger Preisendefer
paine@rust.dec.com (Willy Paine) (11/15/89)
In article <24037@cup.portal.com> you write: >A word of warning to all current and potential PC Pursuit >subscribers. I cancelled my account as of May 31, in writing >over a month in advance, and they are STILL billing me! Yes, many former PC Pursuit users and I are fully awared of this problem. PC Pursuit actually is not taking advantage of you but this is same management problem. I try to recall on cancellation without any problem. All the billings comes from Telenet, NOT PC Pursuit and PC P has nothing to do with money. If the problem is still there, you contact Telenet not PC Pursuit. I recalled on finding address on billing problem, not regular address of PCP. I have no problem at all but I have learned from couple of friends. > >The credit card company marked the first two charges as disputed, >and I assume they will so mark the third when I notify them >tomorrow. I am also going to have them treat it as a stolen card >and change the account number. This will not get the $90 back >from Telenet, however. This is still good way to talk with credit card company because Federal law give credit card holders the rights not to pay on what you don't get. I did both write letter to credit card office and my local bank. I had bank person who call credit card office. PCP stopped billing on the next month. Also Telenet will automatically remove the user's access if you don't pay for this or cancel credit card. >Before you sign up for PC Pursuit or recommend it to someone, >consider the risks. You may end up paying more in the long run! It is just a management problem as well as bad service. Wish you very good luck.... I think HST or Telebit modems are better deal than PCP in long run??? willy -- %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % Willy Paine BBS/FAX +1-206-822-4615 % % willyp@seaeast.WA.COM FidoNet 1:343/15 % % uunet!nwnexus!seaeast!willyp fungus.dnet.dec.com!paine % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain % % why you did it wrong - Longfellow. % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (11/15/89)
In <24037@cup.portal.com> rwp@cup.portal.com (Roger William Preisendefer): > After all of the correspondence (registered and otherwise) I can only > assume that it is deliberate, with criminal intent, or a result of extreme > incompetence. I'd guess the latter. Never attribute to maliciousness that which is adequately explained by incompetence. -- Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016 {att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu "The connector is the network"
patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) (11/20/89)
In article <24037@cup.portal.com> rwp@cup.portal.com (Roger William Preisendefer) writes: >A word of warning to all current and potential PC Pursuit >subscribers. I cancelled my account as of May 31, in writing >over a month in advance, and they are STILL billing me! You will recall that when you first wrote to TELECOM Digest/comp.dcom.telecom to discuss this problem, I told you I would refer it to someone at Telenet who could handle it. I assume by now you have my reply, with a copy of the reply from Dave Purkes at Telenet resolving the problem. The problem was not as sinister as you thought, but merely a case of timing between Telenet and the credit card people. They got your notice too late to send the credit one month. When they sent the credit a month later, it hit the credit card office slightly too late for application to your account that month and sat there (in the credit card office) still another month. The letter from Telenet will be printed in TELECOM Digest Sunday night. Aside from (hopefully) occassional billing delays such as yours, I generally find PC Pursuit to be a good, inexpensive and workable solution to the problem of expensive phone bills for long distance modem calls. Patrick Townson TELECOM Digest Moderator/comp.dcom.telecom 'telecom@eecs.nwu.edu' -- Patrick Townson patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@eecs.nwu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) / MCI Mail: 222-4956