Yowsa

Catalogue of wrongs

Covad charges me $20 every year for a cancelled domain name registration, and every year I have to tell them to remove it.

Verizon doesn't itemize my phone calls, so who knows what I'm getting charged for. I've received several text msg ads I never asked for, but because I don't see the numbers on the bill, I keep forgetting to complain about getting charged for them.

A window repair company sent me two invoices for the same service, and I stupidly paid them twice. Now I have left two messages and they haven't returned my call.

I put the wrong bank ID number in for an electronic payment to two different credit card companies, and they both charged me a late payment fee and a returned check fee. Even though both web sites accepted the ID number and confirmed my payment. Both removed the  late fee, but won't remove the return fee.

Last year Covad charged me hundreds of dollars for a customer support housecall, even though none was made. After hours upon hours on the phone, they removed it, and to their credit, gave me a special deal for the upcoming year.

I tried to cancel the MLB package on my satellite service, but called one day after the season started, so they wouldn't do it. (You have to call before the season starts.) I was about to take the call up another level when I decided the situation was a sign that I should watch the Mets for yet another year. Now I can probably sue for emotional damages to boot...

And speaking of DirectTV, I got one of the many annoying phone calls one gets during the evening hours from them last year, asking me to sign up for a too-good-to-be-believed "customer retention" fee of $50 per month including HBO, Showtime, and the NFL package.  So I took it, then waited 3 months for it to start. It didn't, so I had to spend another hour or so on the phone explaining to another dept what had been offered to me, and they said sometimes contractors sign people up for these deals and don't inform the main office. Now I'm wondering if the whole thing was a scam...(To their credit, DirecTV made good on the deal.)

We were billed $265 for a medical test, but our insurance company says the provider can only bill us $87. So now I have to call one or both of them.

In order to avoid being overcharged or otherwise ripped off, the average household would have to employee a full-time worker to track all the bills and derelictions of service. How carefully do you check all the bills that come in?

Return of "Ripped Off"

My credit union, Patelco, charged me $2.00 because I entered the wrong amount when I made an ATM d deposit. And this after they shut down my local branch.

Ripped Off 3: Chase Visa

A mysterious $199.95 charge suddenly appeared on Molly's Chase Visa this month. The vendor was AP9*BPRIVACYPLUS. Huh? She called the number provided, turns out it's some service to protect you against identity theft. Not one, apparently, to protect you against bogus charges on your credit card.

The woman on the other end of the line said Molly had agreed on the phone at some point to sign up for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, a red-letter-event Molly surely would have remembered if it had indeed occurred. When she politely asked the woman to cancel her membership and the charge,  the woman, working from a script no doubt, tried to convince her of the grave mistake she was making. Molly was obliged to offer several reasons why this was a luxury we would have to do without, but the woman parried each one with the ineluctable logic of George W Bush explaining the necessity of maintaining US troops in Iraq.

Finally, the charge was removed. Ostensibly. I'm blaming Chase, because they send flyers and offers for this type of stuff all the time, and I automatically associate such spurious programs with credit card companies.

ATTEMPTED RIP OFF AMOUNT: $199.95

CUMULATIVE RIP OFF ATTEMPTS: $519.95

Linkateria:

• Rip-Off Report: AP9
• AP 9 Companies - official site

Ripped Off 2: iPod

I am now on my 3rd iPod in a year-and-a-half, and this one just crashed. If my extended warranty's still good, I'll go get a 4th. To be fair I use it frequently -- like anytime I'm outside for any length of time. But does that mean 3 brand new iPods should each break down in 17 months?

ATTEMPTED RIP-OFF AMOUNT: $300

Linkateria:
-Video: iPods's Dirty Secret - Info
-Google search: "iPod crashed"

Ripped off!

This post marks the start of a new feature here at Get Down! Ripped Off will focus on attempts made by various corporations and other parties to RIP ME OFF!

My first entry:

Covad.

The DSL provider has for several years running, once per year, attempted to bill me an extra $20.00 for domain name registration, even though I cancelled the particular domain in question several years ago, and have alerted them to the problem each time. I will  attempt to correct this problem yet again.

ATTEMPTED RIP-OFF AMOUNT: $20.00