Geneseo octogenarian Robert Freiburger isn’t the type to have an expensive usage plan on his cellphone. He calls, texts and looks at the news, and that’s about it.
So he was shocked to see an AT&T bill for $3,700 in his mailbox this summer — a symptom of a mounting hacking scam that had begun back in April with dozens of phony phone lines added to his account.
Packages containing actual phones he never ordered began mysteriously arriving at his doorstep.
AT&T Fraud Department officials told him to sit tight and not pay the bills until they sorted out the situation.
Freiburger, 80, said he told AT&T, "These phones are not mine. There must be some mistake."
He added, "They said they’d look into it, that it would get corrected. But when the next billing cycle came, the bill had gone up even more. Obviously, that’s fraud.”
I contacted AT&T about the issue and the company deducted $3,900 in fraudulent charges from his bill.
But seven months later, the problem hasn't been totally fixed.
Freiburger still has a mystery $653 balance on his now closed account and collections agencies regularly call him about why he's not paying it.
Why an AT&T bill just kept growing
Freiburger, who has nobody else on his phone plan, knew something was off when his April bill showed two extra phone lines added to his account. He had one cellphone, for which he paid about $89 a month.
On his account at one point were an old phone and tablet he gave to his daughter, who set them up with her own account, and a phone he gave to a friend, who took it to Europe where it was then stolen, he said. The phone numbers for those devices are unrelated to the fraudulent numbers or charges listed on his bills.
He received a notice from AT&T on April 19, saying unauthorized activity had been detected on his account. The company locked his online account and encouraged him to change his password.
“To the extent this activity resulted in any unauthorized charges or changes to your account, AT&T has or will restore your account,” the AT&T notice read. It included information about malware and phishing, which are common ploys hackers use to infect computers or gain information.
But when Freiburger’s next bill came, another line had been added. When the cellphones showed up at his house, AT&T said he’d ordered them. He hadn’t.
He continued to make calls to AT&T over the summer, and they continued to assure him the issue would be fixed. Eventually his account was shut down for nonpayment, and he switched to a Cricket phone, for which he pays $30 to $35 a month.
Two months after that, he got an AT&T bill for $3,718. A month later, that ballooned to $4,103, with a total of five lines open on his now former account.
“I finally did get some (AT&T) people to listen and they said, ‘Oh, that has to be a fraud situation, and we’ll look into it,’” he said.
“Nothing ever happened.”
AT&T addresses problem after reporter investigates
Freiburger called me about the issue, and I called AT&T.
Days later, he said, representatives told him the situation had been mishandled by their staff and that his balance would be revised to $0; that was down from a total of over $4,000 at the time.
According to an AT&T statement, his login information was stolen, likely via malware, and used online to add the devices to his account. The scam did not involve a breach of AT&T’s systems.
“We reversed the unauthorized activity and reached out to the customer to resolve this,” AT&T’s statement read.
Freiburger’s September bill listed $3,911 in subtracted charges that stemmed from fraudulent activity on his account.
But as of November, seven months after the initial notification of unauthorized activity and three months after switching mobile providers, he is still on the hook for $653 related to his primary phone number.
AT&T did not immediately return requests for an explanation of Freiburger’s remaining balance. He gets collections calls regularly about the bill.
“I think their customer service chain of command and how they deal with customers has to be reviewed,” Freiburger said. “There were no checks and balances to see what had gone wrong.”
He added that he’s more aware of his online accounts and mobile devices now that he has experienced both a hacking episode and the hassle of getting it resolved.
“I’ve been telling friends about the situation, and I’m being a lot more vigilant on all my accounts, my online accounts and my bank statements,” he said.
“I’ve looked at them a lot more carefully than I did before.”
Sarah Taddeo is the consumer watchdog reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK's New York state team. She investigates stories about your consumer rights, including scams, negligent landlords, safety issues and wayward businesses. Got a story tip or comment? Email STADDEO@Gannett.com or call (585) 258-2774.
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Send me a question you'd like me to investigate, and I'll get in touch with you if I can look into it or write a story.
https://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/news/2019/11/05/geneseo-resident-scammed-cell-phone-bill-new-york/4123721002/
2019-11-05 08:19:00Z
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