The Mr. Brown Network

I was asked a while back why I stopped my reviews of episodes America’s favorite reality show, “Cheaters,” and there’s a simple answer for that: I can’t.

Since I moved to the Ozarks, I’ve searched for a television station that runs first-run episodes of the show. Unfortuantely, there is only one — KWBM. KWBM is a DayStar-owned affiliate, which apparently does not have a contract with the satellite providers, DirecTV & Dish Network.

It is apparently available on the local cable provider, MediaCom, but from what I’ve heard from my real estate agent, my coworkers, my wife’s co-workers, my friends, and the Internet, MediaCom is the worst cable provider in America, hands down… which is why everybody here in Springfield, and the surrounding Ozarks communities, has a satellite provider or U-Verse.

Some of you are probably saying, “Tony, you’re a technically savvy guy – why not just put up an antenna and watch it over the air”? Well, I would do that… ‘cept KWBM barely puts out a signal, and on top of that, they broadcast out of Harrison, Arkansas, a city approximately 80 miles away.

So yeah – no more Cheaters reviews until Joey Greco can hook me up with a new affiliate.

Back on a quaint, late September afternoon, I received the bill for our home phone line from AT&T, and something immediately caught my eye – my normally $50 bill was $80! Quickly, I began to search the bill like a hawk to discover a $21 charge for a collect call from Vail, Colorado care of “Transaction Clearing / BillwithUs”.

Scam of the Century!

At first I thought maybe my wife had some wacky cracked out relative in Vail that she accepted a collect call from, but surprisingly, she knows of no one in Vail, Colorado. I attempted to call the number, but it just rings and rings and rings…

I got on Google as fast as I could, and searched for “BillwithUs”. Turns out it is a very well known and documented “cramming” scam. Some little outfit in god knows where falsely bills people for collect calls that were never made and received, and hopes to god that most people don’t look at or question their telephone bills. Well, unfortuantely for them, I do. And I’m two shakes from being a fully licensed attorney (plus, I’m unemployed, so I have all of the free time in the world!), so I do what is expected of me – file a complaint with the Missouri Attorney General.

While the complaint is being processed, I call AT&T, which is a completely unpleasant experience. AT&T’s people tell me there’s nothing I can do about it, I can’t prevent 3rd parties from billing to my telephone account (i.e. the experience can repeat itself!), and I need to call this phony BillwithUs, even though a quick Google search brings up loads of cramming complaints and Attorney General complaints filed around the country.

So, I call BillwithUs. They insist I accepted the phone call from this phantom number in Vail, Colorado. I start raising hell, and without arguing with me, they credit me the amount — obviously, they know they’re in the wrong, otherwise they wouldn’t be so quick to credit the amount!

Months later, after Chris Kosher’s (Missouri’s AG) consumer complaints office completes their “investigation”, I get a letter from their office, which states they do not feel any fraud is taking place (even though the FTC has opened a case against them, and there are five complaints in the past 6 months in Missouri alone), and they attached a letter from BillwithUs’s “Jing Telmo”, which is almost comical:

On October 1, 2009 Anthony Brown called our customer care center and spoke with a Call Center Agent, Anthony Brown was explained [sic] that the charges on behalf of BWU represent a collect call to his residence, Anthony Brown proceeded to dispute the charges and although we feel the call was received and accepted, a credit was approved for reimbursement and submitted back to his phone company which he was informed will be applied in 1-2 billing statements.

Wow, I wish I could just get off of charges of fraud by saying “I didn’t do anything!” Wouldn’t that be super?

Anyhow, it looks like in an attempt to lower the Google results that bring up “BillwithUs fraud”, “BillwithUs cramming”, and “BillwithUs ripped off”, the lovely folks at BillwithUs have opened their own craptacular website. The website provides nothing substantive – it’s obvious that they’re just trying to keep folks from reading about their fraudulent activities.

So, has anybody out there been scammed by these people? Any other interesting stories to share?!