January 11, 2005

1-800-COLLECT

I'm sure by now that everybody out there has seen the 1-800-COLLECT advertisements. You've got Dennis Miller hawking the service now, claiming that all calls up to 20 minutes are 99 cents, and 7 cents a minute after that.

That's what the television ads say. However, they don't mean it.

My phone didn't get hooked up until last night, so I had been calling my wife for a couple of minutes each night using 1-800-COLLECT and charging it to my American Express card. I was expecting some sort of additional charge for that convenience.

However, American Express put a fraud alert on my card, and I'm glad they did, otherwise I wouldn't have found out that a 32-minute call to my wife, which under the TV ad rates would cost $1.83, cost me over $68.00!

So I'm sorry, but I'm going to contest the charges. And Dennis, I'd seriously rethink who you're hawking for.

No comments: