update on 'residential email' telephone billing fraud

Just had a very good experience with AT&T regarding the ESBI / Residential Email, LLC fraud I posted about a while back...check out the comments of the original post to see what happened, and to see the stories of others that have run into the same thing.

The whole 'third-party billing' loophole is a big one that allows anyone with your phone number to sign you up online for services and have recurring charges added automatically to your phone bill, all without your knowledge. Ideally, AT&T would have a policy that requires authorization FROM THE PHONE NUMBER BEING BILLED before adding a service [something like how credit card companies require you to call from your home phone number to activate a new card]. That would be much harder to fake, and would ultimately reduce the phone company's administrative costs of dealing with these issues, make the practice less profitable for the less-reputable companies, while still making it available to consumers who want those services.

If you get caught in this, please write your phone company [email or paper] and ask for the ability to block third-party billing. The more of us that ask, the more power we have.

[A FAVOR PLEASE: IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COMMENT, PLEASE DO SO ON THE ORIGINAL POST. THANKS MUCH...]