My family recently received an extra charge on the monthly phone bill, coming from my mother's line. She is sure of not ordering anything extra, so we contacted Verizon and they returned an IP address of where the purchase came from. What exactly can be done about this? I tracked the IP address and have an address of the place (a business). Any help is appreciated, thanks!
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What to do about suspected fraudulent purchase?
- Thread starter p0intblank
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Contact the company/store that the purchase was made and inquire as to what was purchased and made. This will help verify that the family did not make the purchase. Sometimes companies go under different names because they're owned by other companies, so it's not always apparent where the item was bought.
If you can verify no one in the family made the purchase then contact the credit card company (if one was used for the purchase) and see if you can get the money refunded. If need be contact the police, though don't be surprised if they can't help much. Not many places have cyber divisions to effectively track down the person. Tracking IP addresses doesn't always help as people can use proxies to hide their true location.
If you can verify no one in the family made the purchase then contact the credit card company (if one was used for the purchase) and see if you can get the money refunded. If need be contact the police, though don't be surprised if they can't help much. Not many places have cyber divisions to effectively track down the person. Tracking IP addresses doesn't always help as people can use proxies to hide their true location.
Do you mean an item was purchased from a website that was then added to her phone bill (is that something you can do in the US? Or that an extra facility was added to her phone service that she didn't purchase?
In either case, I wouldn't be wasting time playing detective chasing up IP addresses, I'd go back to the company trying to charge me, and say "not mine", take it off.
this is often called cramming, and shady organizations try to do this via your phone bill. The telcos aren't very careful about allowing companies to make charges that show up on your phone bill, but there's no reason for them to really care. You'll have to dispute the charge with the phone company. If you're not satisfied go to the state department of public utilities. Don't bother with the police; it's probably happening from another state.