Earthlink VoIP Fraud Hits Home

Have you heard of VoIP fraud? As of tonight, I have. When I got home from work this evening, there was an Earthlink box sitting on my doorstep. I hadn't ordered anything from Earthlink, so I curiously popped the tape open and found hardware for a new VoIP account in my husband's name, and confirmation that our current telephone line would soon be cancelled. I quickly went through this series of reactions:

1. Annoyance. My husband knows that I am anti-VoIP for the home because of poor E911 support. Our current telephony cost of $15/month is entirely acceptable for both a home landline and the assurance of emergency services.
2. Indignation. My husband definitely knows how ticked I would be if he cancelled our telephone line without telling me. And so, Earthlink marketing must have entered the telephone slamming business, and I burned with thoughts of fiery blog posts.
3. "Oh, crap." Earthlink marketing couldn't be that stupid. And so someone must be setting up accounts in our name and making international VoIP calls.

I spent 90 minutes on the phone, talked to two representatives, set up two fraud reports, set up two confirmations of inactivation, and cancelled five user accounts across four service types. There were four separate Earthlink accounts set up using my husband's name and our home address and telephone number. Fortunately, our real Earthlink DSL account is on our business line and in my name, and therefore 'untainted' - the last thing I need is to have our home DSL cancelled by Earthlink's fraud division. But my husband's name is now effectively banned from Earthlink.

During one of my holding periods, I Googled up these interesting descriptions of VoIP fraud. These primarily focus on the cost to the carrier, but personally I'm more concerned with this little-discussed form of identity theft. The VISA number submitted to Earthlink had been rejected (in which case, why had they sent out hardware?) but my husband was still registered as responsible for the account charges. If we hadn't received the snail mail confirmation or the hardware on our doorstep, we would never have known.

Comments

[Stupid]

You get what you ask for!

You order something and you get it, and you call it fraud. We must use different dictionaries.

[TrustedID.com]

There is this company called Life Lock that helps protect your credit. In order to do this LifeLock places fraud alerts on your credit profiles. This added step will make creditors contact you prior to extending credit in your name.

[GT Elders]

I have been going round for round with earthlink since may 05. Earthlink bought my isp. I had paid for 2 years. Earthlink was to honor my contract.. At the end of may I signed up for a wireless account in addition to my already paid for dialup account. I was told that I could try it for 2 weeks free of charge then it would be 79.95.. Ok great..in 12 days I returned it and canceled the wireless service.
But they kept on charging my credit card right up to this date (apr 07) . I called and complained 27 times telling them to stop. But still they kept on billing me. I would demand all the previous months be refunded but they claim they can not go back that far. I guess I should read my credit card bill more closely . But I have been fighting for my life from Cancer for the past few years. I am often too sick to even move much less read.. I did call my credit card company many times. They claim that the can not stop them from charging me . They can only remove the charges if I call in to dispute the charge with in 60 days.
In conclusion:
I believe that Earthlink knows exactly what they are doing. I believe that they taking advantage of people like me just because they can. I would like to sue them for what they have been doing.. Anyone interested in being involved please contact me . Thx

[qthrul]

It's probably not exactly the same thing but... I had a similar experience with Earthlink cable modem service. However, the blame actually rested with Time Warner Cable or at least they were in the mix too.

When my account was recently updated, there was a duplicate entry that cause my cable modem service to be added again with new equipment and an array of TV services that I never requested.

Oddly enough, my payments were drafting to another account -- so someone wasn't getting a bill for all manner of services. I was paying for a neighbor or a transposed version of my address apparently.

This went on for greater than 60 days and most customer service positions cannot see back further than two months billing. Who knew you could run up $200 a month in "TV"?

I highly recommend the fraud group at AMEX as they apparently have a time machine and people with baseball bats to make things right.

So, while identity theft might be on the rise (buzz) lately, I find that bad software and poor record handling are far more prevalent.

[Kris]

That's amazing! Thank you so much for posting that. We had a minor bout with identity theft last year and I know how infuriating it can be.

Holy Cow.