Straight Talk Wireless review: double billed my debit card 5

I just spent almost half an hour of my time on the phone with them for the 2nd time this week for the same issue. What a waste of my lunch hour. This is the 3rd time they have done this now since I've had their service for 10 months. Great rates, but lousy customer service. You've all seen that television commercial: "Hi, this is Peggy." "Yes", "Yes", "Yes"... 'click and hangup'. What is happening to service in this country? Here's two answers: quit opening up corporate offices in Union states where they have to pay unusually high wages for a job a College Freshman can do. Open up the call centers in right to work states, where they won't have to pay as much and therefore pass the costs on to the consumer. Hell, I worked PT in jobs to help put myself through college, and that was only 15 years ago. Quit outsourcing customer service... Next, this is to corporate leadership: realize that no matter how cheap your rates are, that if people have to tolerate incompetence and lousy customer service, they will leave your service, and you will lost money. Put a call center in a university here in the states or in Canada where the kids can earn some PT money and also, get credit for an internship... I'd pay 10 more a month for your service if it was based here in the states where the service is usually better, quicker, and the systems not so antiquated. If this happens with Straight Talk one more time, I am going on a letter writing campaign to office of Consumer Affairs, Walmart and the FCC, then I'm cancelling my service and will happily go back to paying 20.00 more just to get decent service. Here's the synopsis...
today's summary of my conversation and original complaint:

----Original Complaint from October 20th:
I just paid 47.23 to Straight Talk. Transaction ID # XXXXXXXXXXX
shows that it was approved. However, I cannot make or receive calls! I
turned off my phone and turned it back on and it still will not make or
receive calls. This is very frustrating. Please resolve this issue
immediately.

----Complaint entered on their website on October 21st:
I am now running out of patience with Straight Talk. I spent the better
part of half an hour at 5:00 PM on the phone with Vanessa, simply trying
to pay for a months worth of service. THEN, I got home checked my phone
and it wasn?t activated yet! Well after I sent this e-mail last night,
the phone is now activated. But NOW, I check my account and see that
you billed me twice! Your representative Vanessa, said she would set
me up on auto-refill and that it would take effect on the next service
end date of 11-19. You should have only billed me 47.23 for October 19
to November 19. THEN on November 19 you should start the auto-refill.
You need to refund one of these transactions and then bill me again on
November 19th. I don?t trust you to get it right, as I?m sure you will
bill me again on November 19th. Honestly, your prices are great, but
since I have had Straight Talk (over 10 months now) I have grown
increasingly impatient with your customer service. If this is not
resolved, I will be forced to report it to the Consumer Affairs bureau
which oversees the locale. I will also be forced to include the CEO of
Walmart in my communications, add well as the Federal Communications
Commission. I do not have the time to deal with this and it is taking
away from my work time.
Please reverse one of the transactions.

-----October 22 summary of my conversation while on lunch break:
Called 10/22/10 and spoke to a woman named "Teodoro".
I read to her the entire e-mail which they sent me after my online complaint. After the usual repetitive niceties and exhaustive questions and comments seemingly due to an antiquated system, and due to having non-native English speakers providing service, she placed me on hold for "3 minutes". She got back on at 13:00 minutes. As usual I had to repeat a number of questions. My name, last 4 digits of my card which I already gave to her in full twice, and again, the usual niceties. Again "please bear with me and stay on the line"... after 16:50 minutes now! She asked "why did it get charged twice"! I AGAIN had to state that I signed up for monthly service form 10/19 to 11/19, and that I wanted to setup auto refill beginning on 11/19. Vanessa said the auto refill would not occur until 11/19/10, but they billed me for it on 10/21/10 (when Vanessa verbatim "promised it will not be billed until 11/19/10")! This is the 3rd time I have answered this question! I then had to repeat the transaction ID's to her from the Straight Talk website... 3 times!
Good lord, How many times will they say, "Thank for you for that information"; "Please bear with me and stay on the line"; or "I'm waiting for my system" These niceties were repeated routinely about 10 times each now at 23:41 minutes into the conversation.

Her statements:
"Please allow 24 hours for it to be applied to account." Amount = "47.23"
"Reference # xxxxxxxxxxxxx"

I asked, "Will this definitely be taken care of?" She answered, "Don't worry it will take 24 hours. Check credit card in 24 hours."

She stated, "This will be the last time that I will experience this issue."

This whole call took 27:24 minutes!

I thanked her and told her, I do not blame her, that she is a very nice person but that if this is not taken care of properly this time that I will take the issue higher up.

Straight talk charged my credit card twice when I refilled my phone over the phone. Now I have been on hold for over thirty minutes waiting to see if I can get one of these charges removed. I have the unlimited plan but they charged me twice what I agreed to over the automated phone call to refill. I will now have them take my credit card off their records so they can't just charge what ever they want when ever they want. I am sure that once I get the non English speaking person on the phone they will not give me my money back. I will try anyway.

They double charged me also and I've been on hold for three hours. The bank verified they made the charge and gave me the transaction id. And everything. They will not allow mw to email the proof. I keep telling them I have the prof from the bank and they just say it does not show on there system. Both charges were for 45.77 one both on march 5 thank both are completed. They are not in my pending transactions. If any one can tell me how to help please comment.

I had the same issue with being double billed when I enrolled in the auto refill program. Instead of calling, I went to the online live chat on their website and got the problem corrected and the second charge refunded in about 10 minutes. When you talk to the live chat, they will give you a reference PIN number and a phone number to call (different phone number than customer service) and you will enter your PIN and talk to a real person. I hope this help you.

My auto pay did not go through so I decided to pay online in September for two phones so there should have been only two fees. For some reason I can't figure out how to bundle phones, so they take it out to different payments. So September they took a total of four charges when they should've only taken two. I ignored it, because in the past, I was told that "no worry it will go towards next month, and you will not be charged." Well, that's funny because they just charged me for those same two phones again in October just now this week. I had just enough in my account for my rent so this has overdrawn my account.