When you get promised one rate and charged another, it’s frustrating. When it happens to thousands of customers getting service from the same company all at once, it’s probably a sign of a systematic problem. And one report now says thousands of AT&T and DirecTV customers have been complaining about exactly that for years. [More]
overcharged
Kohl’s To Pay Nearly $1M To Settle Allegations It Overcharged Customers In California
By 6.29.15
Kohl’s Corporation must shell out nearly $1 million to settle lawsuits with four California counties over allegations the company charged customers more than the price advertised on shelves and signs. [More]
Borders.com Charged Me 40 Percent Sales Tax
By 12.10.10
Reader M bought four books online from Borders for $17.82 and was charged $7.07 in sales tax. Unless the books were cigarettes, there was probably an error on Borders’ end. But M says the bookseller refuses to acknowledge a mistake. [More]
Verizon Mistakenly Charges Me $6K, Promises Refund, Isn't Delivering
By 12.3.10
When Scott upgraded to a smartphone, Verizon forgot to initiate his new data plan, so he was soaked with a $6,000 bill under his antiquated former plan. Since Scott is signed up for auto-billing, his credit card was charged before he could argue. He says Verizon admitted its error and agreed to a refund, but it’s been 30 days and Scott is still waiting. [More]
Custom TeleConnect Charges Man $20 For 20-Second Collect Call
By 5.18.10
Mike’s mom is one of the fifteen people in the U.S. who doesn’t have a cell phone, so she called him collect from a pay phone in California. Mike and his mom didn’t know it at the time, but they fell into the sarlacc pit that is Custom TeleConnect, a creature that hides in payphones and charges $20 fees for less than half a minute of talking. [More]
Watch Out For Drugstore Price Traps
By 4.7.10
I was at a Rite-Aid a couple of weeks back and went to pick up some cheap dish detergent, and the bottles that I remembered being less than $1.50 were all in the $3-4 range. I left and found sanely-priced soap at another store a few blocks away. Our reader Stan just wrote in with a similar example, where he caught his local CVS charging him three times as much as a nearby competitor. [More]
Revolutionary New Apple Service Bills Your AMEX Card For Nearly $50,000 In Music
By 2.9.10
I think we can all agree that Jobs and his crew at Apple are a bunch of visionaries when it comes to gadgets, online stores, and now getting really, really screwed by an iTunes purchase. Joel writes, “I just got a call from American Express stating that my recent purchase for iTunes plus for my entire library (cost $146) has been charged to my account over 300 times and is currently still being charged. I have called Apple to have them stop charging me and they told me the only thing I can do is cancel my card. There is no number for iTunes and I have sent multiple messages to them without response via email.” [More]
Dollar Messed Up My Contract, Charged Me For An Extra Day For Being 40 Minutes Late
By 1.13.10
Natraj rushed through the contract signing process when renting a car from Dollar, and his failure to confirm the car return time on the paperwork ended up costing him an extra day’s rental fee. [More]
Michigan Utility Company Must Refund $39 Million To Overcharged Customers
By 11.5.09
In Michigan, utilities can increase rates without first getting approval, but that means the Michigan Public Service Commission can later reduce them. That’s what happened on Monday, when the Commission ordered Consumers Energy to refund about $39.6 million to customers it overcharged since last May.
How To Reverse A Debit Card Overcharge Quickly
By 9.15.09
If someday you have the bad luck to have one of your debit transactions entered incorrectly by a merchant, here’s how to get things back to normal quickly. The important part is not to let the merchant “get back to you” at some later day. Instead, try to get your bank and the merchant on the line at the same time in order to get it rectified immediately.
Bank Piles On Overdraft Fees Due To Merchant Error, Doesn't Seem Too Keen On Refunding Them
By 9.10.09
Here’s a story from a reader about a bad bank practice that we hear about too frequently—a bank cascades hundreds of dollars worth of overdraft fees on an error that’s beyond the customer’s control, but then is unresponsive or uncooperative on refunding those fees.
Data Recovery Corp Invents Terms To Convince You Your Hard Drive Is Broken
By 9.4.09
Fox 11 News in LA went undercover with an intentionally damaged hard drive to find out whether online complaints about Data Recovery Corp, Inc. were true. Can you guess what the result was?
What To Do When You Discover You've Been Overcharged At A Restaurant
By 7.17.09
James discovered that the waiter at a steakhouse he and his wife ate at padded his bill by 4 extra dollars, but also ran through the charge a second time with no tip at all. Now he’s wondering what to do next.
Game Crazy Customer Gets Response From District Manager
By 7.15.09
Lu, who caught a Game Crazy cashier adding bogus fees to a purchase, has sent in a couple of updates.
Game Crazy Cashier Caught Sneaking Gameguard Fees Onto Sale
By 7.13.09
Lu tried to buy “Dead Space” yesterday at a local Game Crazy because it was on sale. The cashier, however, added two fees for $1 and $2 for “Gameguard” insurance without Lu’s permission—then tried to explain it away by saying the price was higher than marked and he’d actually had to give discounts to bring it down to the sale price.
Short Cab Ride Home, Bank Error Drive Woman Crazy, Poor
By 7.1.09
After a night out, Krystal did the responsible thing and took a cab home. As a reward she had her checking account raided and was stonewalled and condescended to by customer service reps from both Yellow Cab and Chase.
Man Downloads Movie While In Mexico, Receives $62,000 Wireless Bill
By 4.28.09
If you’re going out of the country for more than 15 seconds, don’t forget to turn off, remove, leave at home, freeze in a block of ice, disable, or otherwise render unusable your wireless card. Above all, do not download Wall-E for your nephew to watch on your computer. Unfortunately, we do not have any more details about what was going on here, because Clark Howard apparently has to get back to his NASCAR pit.
Dell Charges Customer $300 More Than He Authorized
By 4.3.09
Matt is having some trouble getting Dell to sort out its billing mistake with his new TV purchase. It’s an interesting story because for the most part, Dell employees or outsourced CSRs are trying to be helpful to Matt, but nothing has actually been accomplished yet over email, chat, or the telephone. Matt wants his $300 back, and Dell wants Matt to just return the TV set if he won’t pay the non-discounted price. We think he may have a case here for disputing the overcharged amount.
