HOT under the collar?
If you’ve been burned in a deal gone bad, contact the UCAN Fraud Squad, or if you are a member dial our helpline at (619) 881-UCAN.
Our advocates are trained to provide UCAN members with dispute resolution and advice for resolving the most common consumer complaints. What’s more, if your complaint involves SDG&E, your phone, or your cable service, UCAN’s Fraud Squad will intervene on your behalf.
The following are just a few examples of typical Fraud Squad complaints:
CASE 12784: Victory for a faulty meter victim.
When Dan’s electric meter was stuck on “slow” for eight months, SDG&E replaced the meter, and wanted to stick Dan with a hefty bill. We stopped any SDG&E over-billing because we knew that the utility can only back-bill for three months in the event of a faulty meter.
CASE 5279: Busting AT&T’s "Numbers Racket."
Mary had sent us her AT&T bill with three $1.99 charges for directory assistance. We got the charges removed. What a racket! What Mary didn’t know was that FREE 411 directory assistance is available from (800) 411SAVE and (800) FREE411.
CASE 19434: Deal/No Deal.
When Time Warner Cable offered Fran a special six-month deal for its expanded service, she accepted. Unfortunately, when frugal Fran decided to terminate the deal, Time Warner wouldn’t let her! Fran made three attempts, staying on hold for 30 minutes each time. When she finally got through, the company told her she would have to pay a $20 “trip charge” to terminate the special deal. To complete this rip-off, Time Warner said it would continue billing her until they could schedule a technician to restore her service! You don’t spit into the wind and you don’t mess with UCAN’s Fraud Squad. UCAN initiated legal action against Time Warner.
CASE 15935: SDG&E cracks deposit whip.
When the Taylor family fell on hard times, they also fell behind on their SDG&E bill. SDG&E demanded immediate payment for the bill and also doubled the amount of the Taylor’s highest bill and demanded it as a deposit. The Fraud Squad intervened and SDG&E offered a payment plan, and waived the deposit on the condition that the account stay current for the next 12 months.
SDG&E Price Gauge
My boyfriend and I bought a condo in February 2007. Since we've move in, for 7 months, our gas and electric bill has always been approximately $50-$60. Recently, in October, our gas and electric bill jumped to $67 which was a bit high for us; so, we started to cut back. Let me explain that my boyfriend and I are very conservative when it comes to electricity. Since we've moved in, all our light bulbs were changed to energy saving bulbs, our water heater is a 4 year old energy saving electric water heater with 3 inches of insulated foam, we don't use the dishwasher, washer, dryer, heater, or AC. We are very cost efficient. So, when we received the $67 bill, we stopped going home in general to save electricity. We started going to our parents to eat, shower, and do laundry. We work from 6:00AM and would not come home from our parents until 10:00PM to go to bed. Then, in November, our gas and electric bill spiked to $91 with all our conservation, and in December it skyrocketed to $151, finally, in January it was $198.
We are at a lost of solutions. We have contacted SDG&E at least 10 times regarding our price hike. Every time we've called, there was always an excuse that was not true. We've had our electric meter checked, we've had a technician check to see if the meter served our property, half of the switches on our circuit breaker is turned off, we've had an electrician look at our appliances to see if anything is broken, and nothing is broken. Now, SDG&E says they can't do anything else to help us find the problem, but that next month's bill will be even higher!!
We are outraged and frustrated. We have not bought any new appliances since we've moved in, we are not using more electricity, there is only two people living in this 1100 sq.ft. condo, we are walking around in the dark and always in the same room with only one light on in an attempt to conserve energy. It seems like despite how much we conserve, the electric bill continues to double/triple/quadruple, etc. We would not be so upset if we had actually used the energy they are charging us, but we haven't used the energy; we're never home! $200 serves a large family and house, not a couple with a 1100sq.ft. condo. We need your help, what should we do next? Please HELP!!!
ANSWER TO SDG&E PRICE GAUGE
First, turn off all your breakers including the main circuit breaker to verify that your meter is not running, the round disk in the middle of the meter should not be moving. Then turn the main breaker on and one other breaker, identify what appliances are on this breaker, then do this for each breaker looking for a breaker that causes the round disk to spin faster. Something is drawing this added electricity. Given that the increase has happened in the winter I would first look for the breaker to your heating system, also check your thermostats. You can also contact me at UCAN 619 696-6966. Vince.
I have had various billing
I have had various billing problems, because I carry one line for work and one for personal use. I got nailed with one really bad one when I got my new iPhone and it turned out they had basically waited two months to send me a bill so I did not notice I was way over my minutes until after the second month. Anyway, I did find a service at www.myvalidas.com that will double check your bill and recomend savings. I recently noticed that they now compare your plan to what it would cost on other networks and how much you could save by matching your usage to the right network. In any case it is a great way to fight back and I love it.
www.myvalidas.com
Over-charging in phone Bill
Dear Squad,
In grocery store I have seen the sign, if we charge you more than what the price tag says, we will pay you $$$ (something).
Why does Cingular gets away with "oops, sorry, we will give you the courtesy credit for the over charges" and that's it.
Isn't it like if they over-charge and people did not call to check, Cingular makes the money? Isn't that a fraud?
There is no explaination that they can come up with why they over-charged me. And I have seen it happen 1 too many times. I would like to expose this fradulant practice of Cingular, because not everybody checks their bills.
Is it the software that they have is causing this? So, if it is faulty, then it should be happening for many customers. Shouldn't somebody audit them?
What do you suggest?
I appreciate your help.
Regards,
Prashant
Sprint Notorious For Overbilling. Fraud Alert
Sprint has overbilled me on my last 3 statements. It started out small enough I didn't notice but then they got greedy stealing as much as $165 on one bill! How do they do it? They mis categorize your calls. Say you are making a call to someone in your network. It should be a free phone call with mine and most other services. But with Sprint, the disrty B@sT#rds are taking your plan minutes for those, and then later billing you when you go over. Another way they steal your money, is to deduct plan minutes for weekends when you have free minutes and for nights. They even got me on a bigger racket. They got me to pay $5 extra for my nights to start at 6PM, and then they bill me when I use my phone thinking my minutes are included!
DAMN THIEVES! I HATE THEM! If you are considering going with Sprint for your cell phone needs, DONT, let me save you the head ache. Just send me $500 and I will save you 6 months of overbilling and bail out fees. Then you can go down with what money you have left to Verizon or Cingular. At least they won't steal as blatantly as Sprint.
Same exact thing.
Dear Gottlieb,
The same exact thing has occured to me for over a year now. Until it got to the point that I could not stand for it one more second, with the constant monthly calls, which were transfered to India, Korea, or some foriegn country where you could not understand one word. After putting up with it for over a year I switched to Verizon. When I switched, I had to cancel my account, which I had had with them since 1999, the cost I was told to be the fee of $150. Later I would find out that that $150 would be charged on every line (which my account consisted of 5 lines) and the past months billing, which of course was over what it should of been. The total cost came out to be $1400. No one in there right mind would cancel a contract for $1400!!
If you think of all of the millions of dollars that Sprint overbills hardworking Americans you would think it to be a conspericy!! Which is why I have decided to start a Class Action Suit and reveal them for who and what they really are. If you could assist me in this matter I would gladly appreciate it. Please go to James Sokolove's website http://www.jimsokolove.com/ whom I am pursuing to head us in a class action suit against Sprint. Please feel free to email me @ d.leavitt2 [at] gmail [dot] com. I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who is sick and tired of dealing with Sprint and their pillaging of our pockets and their passing the buck. The buck stops here. Please join me in putting a stop to their robbing of anymore innocent paying customers.
Sincerely,
Dan
d.leavitt2 [at] gmail [dot] com
AT&T phone bill overbilling
Friend of mine got billed over $8,000 in one month's bill for cell phone use with calls to Africa, Asia and other far away places. She is fighting back. We would like to know if you have heard of other similar complaints of such outrageous overbilling. Please help us fight back.
Ada
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