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Got slammed (or crammed) by ESBI & “EMAIL DISCOUNTS, LLC”

with 5 comments

Update 11:19 PM

Called ESBI who connected me to “Email Discounts LLC”. They said that “my wife”
signed up for their service using Yahoo email account. I informed them that she does not have a account. They said they canceled the
account. I voluntarily gave them my gmail account for confirmation of cancellation–I figure Google is pretty good about spam–but maybe that’s what their really after.
They said that all charges (including taxes) would be reimbursed and no further
charges would occur because the account was canceled. We’ll see.

Original Post

My monthly bill from AT&T was unusually high this month. My father-in-law (who works for AT&T) warned me about this.

In the bill, I find a section under the heading “Enhanced Services Billing, Inc.” with a logo:

ESBI Logo

ESBI Logo

(account information)

Billing Date Mar 22, 2009
Questions? 1-888-288-3724

Below this, the following is written:

Important Information

This portion of your AT&T bill is provided as a service
to the above company. Please review all charges
carefully – they may include those of a service
provider not shown on a previous bill. Unpaid accounts
may be subject to collection action. Other services may also be
restricted if not paid. If you have questions about any
of the charges appearing on this page, please call the
number shown above.

The bills themselves are:

EMAIL DISCOUNTS, LLC #
For billing questions call 1-800-410-5781
4 -01 03-20 EMAIL DISCOUNTS, LLC MONTHLY FEE 14.95

Rest assured they were not authorized.

Further research on the web indicates that ESBI is associated with fraudulent charges on numerous telephone bills (see the comments). Guess I’ll have to call them tomorrow to get my money back.

It amazes me that in a time when households are watching every dime, no one is doing anything about this fraud.

Written by PoojanWagh

March 26th, 2009 at 10:59 pm