ComplaintsforCons Call Home

• Initial Complaint

  11/14/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Sales and Advertising Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I had a subscription plan with cons call home for a discounted time per minute per phone call my subscription ended November of 2021 and I have been paying only the main phone company secures at 15 minutes phone calls with console home I was being charged $4.42 per 15 minute phone call now with no longer having the subscription I'm paying $3.15 therefore I have been paying more per minute with cons call home when I was told or informed that it would have been cheaper I believe it was instead of paying 69 cents per minute you pay 29 since per minute I'm seeking to be being reimbursed the difference for every phone call that I was charged for at a supposable discounted rate. I have all of the transactions all the phone records of the rate per minute per phone call by both numbers my personal phone number and the second line number that cons call home provided which was the one that was supposed to be a discounted rate and all of the phone calls that were made with my personal number without console home is less I've put 2,500 into the phone provider of the facility and now seen that I probably would have saved half of that if I wasn't lied to and scammed. I've contacted the agent that helped me with getting connected with cons call home and he never acknowledged the email and never replied back to it other than replying or calling me to ask me if I wanted to continue my subscription the day after I sent him an email and didn't comment or explain or even attempt to give me a breakdown of my concern of why I was never being charged at the rate that should have been cheaper than it would have been without it

  Business response

  12/09/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/11/19) */ ********* ******* purchased our service on May 8, 2021 for her loved one who was located at the Taylor Co. Restitution Center in Texas. ConsCalHome.com is an optional inmate phone service for correctional facilities across the United States, we are affiliated with any correctional facility or the inmate phone provider within the facilities. Before we complete any transaction the Terms and Conditions must be agreed upon. Ms. ******* agreed to our Terms thus the transaction was completed and the account was activated. Our Terms in part state: we are not responsible for any occurrences or policy changes with third parties such as a prison phone provider or the correctional facility..., refunds are at our discretion and there are no refunds after the initial setup. At the time Ms. *******'s account was activated we rated the call and we were able to assist her with a number that would fetch (at that time) the lowest rate possible. (at that time we were able to secure a number that reduced her 15 minute call $3.21 and remained until she canceled). On November 7, 2021 Ms. ******* sent a support email to our office: It stated the rate with Securus at Taylor Co. with her own number was now lower ($0.23) than what she was previously charged with ConsCallHome. It also said In part it says "I think Securus gets over in people as it is". Securus is the phone provider within the facility and they dictate the phone rate and again (prison phone providers) may change their rates for telephone calls, at any time and they are not required to notify anyone outside of the facility. On November 8, 2021 Ms. ******* canceled her account. As our terms state we are not responsible for any changes with the facility, or third party vendors, nor are we made privy to any internal changes within the correctional facility. Please keep in mind, during her use of our service we were able to provide service at the lowest rate possible, however because of the recent change that occurred effecting cost her instate number is now at the lowest rate allowed. There is no money due, all charges were in proper order.

• Initial Complaint

  07/22/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Billing Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  this complaint is a attempt to show and prove how cons call home "policies" and business plan steals money from hard working citizens. my refund issue has been going on for months. the company refuses to contact me and resolve the issue. the company does not allow the public to call corp. off.sent a letter and was returned 3 weeks later-suspicious. customer care is useless. i paid $69 for a 6 mo. plan. with no fault of my own, i only made calls in 8 days. the state revoked Securus' contract which left me unable to use my service and was forced to cancel. i was given $15 prorated on $69. another incident is i purchased a 1 mo. plan. my friend was in jail waiting to be transferred in 2 days. 2 weeks later, still waiting. i requested a hold on my account-they refused. forced to cancel and $4 was stolen. this company went into my bank account removed funds without ANY notification whatsoever. these events are unacceptable. i request return of $4 and appropriate prorate. company NOT honest

  Business response

  07/23/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/07/23) */ ***** ******'s account has been officially closed due to cancelation. We have spoken with and responded to Mr. ****** through phone calls, emails and 2 previous Better Business Bureau complaints. This will be an exhaustive detailed response. On 11-12-2020 at 5:39 PM Mr. ****** verbally agreed to our Terms and Conditions for our service. Our Terms and Conditions state in part: Setup fees are non-refundable, after 7 days on monthly services no refunds are given, multi-month plans will be refunded at the non-discounted monthly fee if canceled prior to end date, we are not responsible for third part activity (this includes correctional or prison phone providers activity). On November 15, 2020 Mr. ****** called to ask about putting an 'account on hold', we do not have the procedures in place that allow us to do that, thus for his best interest we suggested he cancel the account instead. (Mr. ****** did not sign up again until February 2021 which means his account whether active or not would have been charged for November, December, January and February if we had not canceled in November while waiting for his inmate transfer to occur). The refund for the initial purchase was issued one week later ( November 2020) according to our Terms and Conditions (minus the setup fee $4.50) which is non-refundable. Mr. ****** called our office on February 18, 2021 to purchase a six month plan for the FL DOC Florida Women's Reception Center, the Terms and Conditions were agreed to and the account became active at 1:17 PM 02/18/2021. At 3:11 PM 02/18/2021 Mr. ****** called in with questions and as a courtesy we added 30 minutes to Mr. ******'s account at no charge. We sent documentation to the correctional facility on 02/18/2021 for Mr. ****** that allows the phone number to be used by the inmate. Again, as with all phone companies all call activity on the number issued is logged with the amount of time used and the dates: while his account was active with us, over 242 minutes & 36 calls were utilized. During this time the FL DOC (Florida Department of Corrections State Wide) contracted with a new internal prison phone provider, the new phone provider instated a flat rate for Florida. At that time, many of our Florida DOC multi-month customers decided to use our service until their plans expired, however, Mr. ****** chose the option to cancel his account, therefore for we issued a refund at the non-discounted monthly rate as agreed to in our Terms and Conditions. (NOTE: Prison phone providers are contracted by correctional facilities for the inmates, however, our service is for the friend and family to help lower the cost of calls where possible. If we cannot save money when a potential customer calls we immediately let them know, if a correctional facility changes their in house provider while a subscriber already has services with us we will provide a refund if owed and according to our Terms and Conditions). Mr. ****** has called our office several times and spoken with our representatives, since he has been refunded, and all calls to us are recorded and time stamped, and have been reviewed, some of those recording could be considered derogatory. We have been told we 'stole his money', that we went into his bank account and removed funds with any notification: We do not steal money, we do not go into bank accounts and remove funds without permission, we do not have the ability to go 'into people's bank account and remove funds. The account was charged according to the customer purchasing a service, which Mr. ****** did. We do not return letters (I personally read all letters and we have not received a letter from Mr. ****** if he referred to an old address of that we are not aware) he has called our corporate number and spoken to everyone here and in fact he called my private cell phone number which I find somewhat threatening. We do not have the capability of 'putting accounts on hold' and his account would have continued to have been charged regardless of use. We have broken down the refund policy and amounts his refunded to the Nth degree. He was refunded all monies due to him according to the Terms and Conditions and he has accepted the refunds we issued in November and the second one in issued in May. His account is closed and there is no further correspondence. We wish Mr. ****** well. Consumer Response /* (3000, 12, 2021/09/10) */ In response to your poorly managed record keeping , lies, and your false accounts of the truth doesn't surprise me. First of all, there were no previous complaints prior to this one. you stated "best interest" for me cancelling my services. how is losing money in the best interest of anyone? In nov. of 2020, I purchased a 1 month plan. where do you come up with multiple months? It is proven through documentation the amount of calls that were made and do not match your claims. When doc cancelled the previous phone provider, it took several weeks until a new carrier was provided. Any reasonable person would have cancelled after this long period of time. Upon documentation, your claim that you have "NO ABILITY" to remove funds is a flat out lie! there still remains a unclear explanation of how 8 days of calls from a 6 month plan which i was charged a total of $75 with taxes, equals a $15 refund. both cancellation events were forced upon me with no choice available. I have proven the amount of lies from your office. you tell so many you can't tell good one's anymore. Last, I'm requesting someone from higher up in corporate office to stop hiding behind those walls and contact me directly, since you are the people behind these outrageous behaviors. Business Response /* (4000, 14, 2021/09/16) */ ***** ******** account has been officially closed due to cancelation. This is the fourth filing with the Better Business Bureau and the facts remain unchanged. The account is closed and there is no further correspondence due. Below is the last response that was previously given. We have spoken with and responded to Mr.******* through phone calls, emails and 2 previous Better Business Bureau complaints. This will be an exhaustive detailed response. On 11-12-2020 at 5:39 PM Mr.******* verbally agreed to our Terms and Conditions for our service. Our Terms and Conditions state in part: Setup fees are non-refundable, after 7 days on monthly services no refunds are given, multi-month plans will be refunded at the non-discounted monthly fee if canceled prior to end date, we are not responsible for third part activity (this includes correctional or prison phone providers activity). On November 15, 2020 Mr.******* called to ask about putting an 'account on hold', we do not have the procedures in place that allow us to do that, thus for his best interest we suggested he cancel the account instead. (Mr.******* did not sign up again until February 2021 which means his account whether active or not would have been charged for November, December, January and February if we had not canceled in November while waiting for his inmate transfer to occur). The refund for the initial purchase was issued one week later ( November 2020) according to our Terms and Conditions (minus the setup fee $4.50) which is non-refundable. Mr.******* called our office on February 18, 2021 to purchase a six month plan for the FL DOC Florida Women's Reception Center, the Terms and Conditions were agreed to and the account became active at 1:17 PM 02/18/2021. At 3:11 PM 02/18/2021 Mr.******* called in with questions and as a courtesy we added 30 minutes to Mr. ******** account at no charge. We sent documentation to the correctional facility on 02/18/2021 for Mr.******* that allows the phone number to be used by the inmate. Again, as with all phone companies all call activity on the number issued is logged with the amount of time used and the dates: while his account was active with us, over 242 minutes & 36 calls were utilized. During this time the FL DOC (Florida Department of Corrections State Wide) contracted with a new internal prison phone provider, the new phone provider instated a flat rate for Florida. At that time, many of our Florida DOC multi-month customers decided to use our service until their plans expired, however, Mr.******* chose the option to cancel his account, therefore for we issued a refund at the non-discounted monthly rate as agreed to in our Terms and Conditions. (NOTE: Prison phone providers are contracted by correctional facilities for the inmates, however, our service is for the friend and family to help lower the cost of calls where possible. If we cannot save money when a potential customer calls we immediately let them know, if a correctional facility changes their in house provider while a subscriber already has services with us we will provide a refund if owed and according to our Terms and Conditions). Mr.******* has called our office several times and spoken with our representatives, since he has been refunded, and all calls to us are recorded and time stamped, and have been reviewed, some of those recording could be considered derogatory. We have been told we 'stole his money', that we went into his bank account and removed funds with any notification: We do not steal money, we do not go into bank accounts and remove funds without permission, we do not have the ability to go 'into people's bank account and remove funds. The account was charged according to the customer purchasing a service, which Mr.******* did. We do not return letters (I personally read all letters and we have not received a letter from Mr.******* if he referred to an old address of that we are not aware) he has called our corporate number and spoken to everyone here and in fact he called my private cell phone number which I find somewhat threatening. We do not have the capability of 'putting accounts on hold' and his account would have continued to have been charged regardless of use. We have broken down the refund policy and amounts his refunded to the Nth degree. He was refunded all monies due to him according to the Terms and Conditions and he has accepted the refunds we issued in November and the second one in issued in May. His account is closed and there is no further correspondence. We wish Mr.******* well.

• Initial Complaint

  06/11/2021

  Complaint Type:

  Service or Repair Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  About five months ago I prepaid for two phone lines from this business to be able to talk to my incarcerated loved one. I was talked into paying in advance for a cheaper rate in the long run. After about three weeks I got a call from my loved one telling me that the facility he's at no longer uses the phone company and I needed to get my money back to purchase another type of phone line. I immediately called cons call home and canceled my account. I was told they were going to credit my remaining balance back to my card. That was four months ago. I have called about five or six times with the same result. No one can tell me how much my refund is supposed to be. No one will let me speak to a supervisor. Everyone keeps telling me they are going to send my account to the front of the line to be processed immediately. Never happens. I want my money returned to me for services never rendered.

  Business response

  07/09/2021

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2021/06/11) */ ************ signed up for our service on January 11, 2021 at 2:55 PM for a six month for the Fl DOC Jackson CI Facility. Before any account may become active the Terms and Conditions must be agreed to, Ms. ******* verbally agreed which is time stamped and documented. We are simply a telephone company that specializes in fetching the lowest rate possible which we did. The Jackson CI facility contracted with a new inmate telephone provider from Securus to Global Tel Link: inmate phone providers work within the facility and they connect the call from the inmate to outside person, they dictate what will be charged per minute. Ms. ******* used our service fully until she decided to cancel her account, in fact in March she used over 400 minutes thus the service was rendered. She chose to cancel the service once the inmate phone provider changed (we are not associated in anyway with inmate phone providers, again we are a phone company that can fetch the lowest telephone rates possible - Jackson CI is now flat rate which means they already charge the lowest rate )prior to the end of her plan. Many of our customers chose to continue with us until their plans expire. Our Terms and Conditions clearly state all refunds are at our discretion, if a six month plan cancels prior to the expiration date a non-discounted monthly rate will be issued minus the setup fee if canceled prior to the fourth month. If canceled after the fourth month there no consideration for a refund (the savings are so great we would be owed money) Ms. ******* canceled her account March 18, 2021 at 5:55PM, her refund was issued in full prior to the filing of this complaint. Refunds are issued solely after review due to security purposes and only through our billing department therefore no discussion of refund amounts are given prior to review. We wish Ms. ******* the best, her account has been closed. Consumer Response /* (3000, 7, 2021/06/19) */ (The consumer indicated he/she DID NOT accept the response from the business.) The facts that have been laid out from Cons Call home are not only false but ridiculous. I was NOT issued my refund until the day after I filed this complaint and it WAS NOT issued in full. I received $20.40 for my refund. I have the documentation from my bank statement to prove it. I paid for the first month service when I set the two phone lines up then I received a phone call from a man named John who works there and he talked me into a 6 month plan in which I paid an additional $74.00 on top of already paying the first month fees. I only had the phone line for one more month in addition to the month I first paid for, so in total I had this service for 2 months and ended up paying about 120 all together. I did not use the 6 months I only used the first month I paid for plus one additional month. The original service was only supposed to be 25.00 a month so it begs the question why did I only recieve $20.40 in return when I should've received at least $50.00 on my refund that I finally received on June 12, 2021 after fighting with the company. Also if the terms and agreement that I supposedly agreed to was recorded, I would like a copy because John told me I could cancel at anytime and receive my money back for services not rendered. That is the only reason I agreed to pay an additional 6 months in advance. Long story shot, I was screwed out of my money! Business Response /* (4000, 9, 2021/06/23) */ Ms. ******* was issued a full refund for the amount due to her. We do apologize for any confusion, however; she did agree to the Terms and Conditions before the account was made active. The Sections for this will be listed below. These are standard terms with phone companies. (In section 3.10 of the Terms and Conditions - Cancellations and Refunds - Refunds are granted at the full discretion of InmateDirect(r), and InmateDirect(r) has the right to deny any and all refunds. ALL SETUP FEES, SECONDARY LINE CHARGES, SERVCIE CHARGES, TRANSFER CHARGES, PRE-PAID MINUTES AND ROLLOVER MINUTES ARE NONREFUNDABLE. If Subscriber has paid for six (6) months in advance, and requests a refund within four (4) months of the initial service payment, a prorated refund may be processed based on the standard monthly pricing as stated in section 4.4. If Subscriber cancels after four (4) months of service, Subscriber waives the right to a refund.) Ms. ******* purchased a monthly plan. During the first month our representative spoke with Ms. ******* about our multi month plans, these plans are deeply discounted for families whose loved ones have a longer incarceration. This decision is done solely by the customer (quite often the savings from our multi-month helps our customers but again this is solely up to the customer). We offer these deep discounted plans to help long term customers, but please keep in mind, without proper refund policies in place many people would abuse the discounted plan. Indeed, the refund was actually issued prior to us receiving the complaint, although the complaint was received later that same day. The account was active for three months, and used each month it was active. In fact, just during the month of March over 400 minutes were used that month alone. For security purposes ALL TRANSACTIONS, CALLS, AND EMAILS ARE SYSTEMATICALLY TIME STAMPED AND DATED, THIS ALSO INCLUDES PHONE CALL LOGS (time on the phone). The refund amount was for the remaining three months of service that was not used. In fact, had the customer canceled any later there would have been no refund due. At the point the non-discounted rate is more than the full amount for the six-month plan. For example, The Ramble500 plan is $86.40, the customer had the plan active January, February, and March. The first month of service for January was $20.50 (this does not include the taxes) February monthly fee is $22.75, and March $22.75. The total charge for the account to be active for these three months is $66.00. Which was a refund of $20.40. The customer did pay an additional $9.99 for additional telephone lines and this charge is not refundable, again as agreed too. We have been servicing the families of the incarcerated for over 10 years, contrary to Ms. *******'s statement, we do not lie. We do wish her the best in the future.

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