The other day I was stuck at the Detroit airport and wanted to let my friend know that I will be late. So I decided to use the pay-phone to call him. Unfortunately I did not have any quarters so I used my card instead. The call went fine. But the bill gave me the shock of my life. First they had charged me $5 for the call which is 10 times ordinary call charge of $0.5. After a couple of days the $5 charge was replaced by $19.41 :-O. The that offered this "service" was ILD Teleservices.
WTH ...... I called up their customer service (luckily this number appears in the credit card statement). First, they made me on wait and I had to listen to crappy ads for 20 minutes. After an almost endless waiting time finally the customer service executive answered my call. I was told that the $5 charge was just to check my account balance and $19.41 is the actual call charge. This is written nowhere on the pay phone box. $19.41 for 3 minutes??? I can call mars at a cheaper rate. I just googled for this so called ILD teleservices and realized that I am not the first one, they have been charging people for unknown or hidden services for quite a some time( check this and this and this). So NEVER NEVER NEVER do any business with ILD.
The lesson I learnt (the hard way) from this is : Never use your credit card for a pay phone. Always carry a few quarters. If you don't have them buy a McDonalds burger for about $4.2, Pay the cashier $5 and get the quarters. Even if you throw the burger in the trash you still save more than $14.
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Hello,
ILD Teleservices is a leading payment processor for transactions between merchants and consumers. Through contractual relationships with telephone companies like AT&T and Verizon, we give merchants the opportunity to let consumers charge products and services such as long distance, internet access, and collect calling directly to your phone bill.
As a result, instead of purchasing these items with a credit card or opening an account with the merchant, you can have a transaction billed directly to your phone. When you do, the merchant sends your transaction information to ILD, and ILD adds the charge to your phone bill. It’s a service very similar to what credit card companies provide.
If you have a charge you believe is incorrect, or if you have any other questions or concerns with ILD, please let us know. We want to address any and all issues you may have. To contact us, please email us at askild@ildmail.com. If you would prefer to call us, please call our hotline at 800-953-7765.
Thank you, and please let us know how we can help.
Ilona Olayan
ILD Teleservices
I did contact them right after I got the bill. The explanation I was given was that "the transaction rates written on the pay-phone device are not for VISA transactions". I can accept that using VISA may cost a bit more but I find it unbelievable that a call that should not cost more than a dollar otherwise would cost $19.41 just because I used a card.
The call-center lady also said that they do have call rate information but it comes AFTER they ask us to dial the number. I do not think any customer in a busy place like airport will even imagine about that.
As it has been almost a year, I do not have any bill details and neither am I bothered. The easiest thing is to just avoid using the "service" altogether.
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