Custom TeleConnect

Nakee of Signal Hill, CA September 30, 2009

On August 28, 2009, I used a pay phone owned by Custom TeleConnect. The pay phone only accepts credit cards. Also, the pay phone does not have any rates on listed on the pay phone. Also, you cannot dial the telephone number, the pay prompts you for your credit card number. I also tried to call 0, however I an operator did not pick up the call.

I used my credit card. I looked at my credit card statement and it had a charge of $20.60. I called Custom Tele Connect and was told that the $20.00 would be credited to my account. However, I just finished speaking to another representative, Cynthia, who stated that the company charges $20. She also stated that the rates are not listed on the telephone, you have to dial 0 to find out the amount. I did call 0 that day, however an operator did not answer the phone.

Kathy of Gilbert, AZ January 30, 2009

I have long distance collect calls on my phone bill that I did not authorize or know about. They are said to be operator connected calls. They said that I need to pay them and they will not be taken off my bill.

I cannot afford to pay these and they are not mine nor did I authorize them. I am financial difficulties that may result in losing our home and our business. Now I will loose our phone privledges also because of this.

Sherman of Haifa, AL October 16, 2008

On 7-8 July 2008 I made several phone calls from pay phones in the lobby of the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Diego. I paid by credit card, and was billed disproportionately. Upon inquiring from Custom Teleconnect Inc. (CTI) who billed me, they wrote: For each call you were charged $1.15 per minute, a $6.50 operator surcharge, $1.50 property imposed fee and a $9.30 Non subscriber fee. In other words, in addition to the $1.15 per minute charge which would be paid by coin, a surcharge of $17.30 for each call!

It appears to me that a consumer should be made aware of any situation in which the difference in the form of payment would result in even a minimal cost increase. However, when there is a potential of increasing the cost ten-fold or fifteen-fold, it would certainly be incumbent on any merchant to notify the customer before such charges are incurred. This should be even more obvious in the case at hand, since the norm in the US and in most of the world is that the cost of merchandise and services is the same whether the payment is made in cash or with a credit card.

Nevertheless, there is no indication on or near those public pay phones of any differences between coin payments and credit card payments, nor was there a recorded notification of such before (or after) the credit card number was punched into the phone. Of course, no such problem would exist if coin payments were made, since then the caller is instructed to enter the required amount prior to making the call and would, of course, refuse payment if $17.30 were added to the cost. Indeed, since CTI does not feel compelled to notify customers of such charges in advance, one might wonder why they drew the line at only $17.30. Althoug CTI refused to divulge the owner of the pay phones, the hotel indicated that it was AT&T. AT&T informed me that since they did not bill me, they cannot help me.

A six-fold increase in the cost of phone calls.

Barbara of West Warwick, RI March 8, 2007

On 1/28/07 I received 2 collect telephone calls from phone booths, in my area, to my home telephone. Both of these calls were a pre recorded voice stating that I had a collect call from (insert name). I immediately hung up the phone, without listening to the full recorded message. I never accepted either call but was billed $23.32 for 6 minutes on my phone bill & told I would have to pay or my credit rating would be affected.

Of course I have no intention of paying for 2 toll (ZPDI) charges that were never accepted. Custom Teleconnect has offered to credit my account (with my local provider, Cox) within 2 to 3 billing cycles. I don't trust the Company, it is a scam & should not be allowed but, deregulation has rendered the consumer bigger headaches. I filed complaints with the FCC (both local & Nat'l). I placed a block on my home phone number, through my local carrier, (free) so I cannot receive the calls through a 900 number provider. I have also called a supervisor at my local provider to dispute the excessive charges & flag my account awaiting the credit. I now will send my billing to Custom Teleconnect for all the time and aggrevation incured from the erroneous billing.

Jerry of Gainesville, GA August 20, 2006

One of my employees used a pay phone to call me to let me know he was stranded with a flat tire. to except call i had to give my check card no. The 4 calls were 13.44,12.55,11.66,10.00. I wasn"t given any rate until it showed up on my bank statment. this is verry exspenseve for a50 cent local call.

David of Santa Barbara, CA April 1, 2006

Collect Call Ripoff Custom TeleConnect billed by ZPDI to Verizon Billed for $29.79 for only a 9 minute phone call from an airport in the USA. I spent and hour on the phone mostly on hold trying to dispute it. I was offered an "adjustment" of only $11. Price of call was never posted or disclosed. Company representatives I talked to tried to blame the practice on our Government and Deregulation laws. I blame it on greed and deception on phone companies.

Kalid of Neport Beach, CA February 14, 2006

I need to make a consumer aware of the outrages charges when making a collect call. It happens to me when I called my brother from a public phone outside the hospital to make a collect call for 3 minutes to his house 4 miles a way. The Charges came to $22.30 for 3 minutes. I called the company made the charges and they said it was legitimate charges. It was outrages charges the company name is Custom Teleconnect. I hope you can put that on the news. This is a crime for a company to charge around $7.43 / minutes, what is going on here. The company name is Custom Teleconnect, they are based on Antonio TX

Chris of Bainbridge, GA August 19, 2002

We recieved our phone bill the other day and after we had paid it we were quite disturbed to discover a list of charges billed to us by Zero Plus Dialing,Inc. on behalf of Custom Teleconnect. The bill was nearly $77.00 for only 16 minutes worth of calls. The kicker was that nobody was at home to accept these collect calls that were made from a payphone in Panama City, Fl. A call to ZPDI got us nowhere, except for the knowledge that they are not the ones who set the $4.80 a minute rates, they just collect them, which, in my opinion, makes them no better than Custom Teleconnect. Only after threatening ZPDI with lawyers did they offer up Custom Teleconnect as the real crook behind this scam.

For some strange reason, however, the 800 number we recieved from ZPDI did not work (who would have figured that?) and we had to resort to tracking them down on the internet (it was so hard) and the website we found had a customer service page but lo and behold it was not working. So we located a local Las Vegas number and called it and were we surprised to found out that it was just an answering service and could not answer any questions pertaining to Custom Teleconnect. The little girl at ZPDI has already told me that Custom Teleconnect will not refund my money, so if that is going to be the case then Custom Teleconnect is going to catch as much hell as I can possibly dish out. ZPDI can expect the same treatment.

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