Arch Wireless Communicatons & Acclaim Financial Services - unable to cancel pager service

# 11 for April 12, 2002

Complaints.com received the following consumer message on April 11, 2002:

From: Computax [Email User]

RE: Arch Wireless Communicatons & Acclaim Financial Services - unable to cancel pager service

Arch Wireless (Communications) Pagers

Last year I received a bill from Arch Communications for my son's pager. He's now in the Army.

I call the Toll Free in Texas to explain that he didn't need the pager and to cancel the service.

I expected it to be cancelled.

30 days later I get another bill marked "Past Due". I again call and was instructed to write cancel on the bill

and send it to the address on the bill. I did.

Now one year later I get a letter from a collection company demanding payment on the "Past Due" pager bill.

04/11/02 8:30 a.m. EDT. Acclaim Financial Services calls the house and wakes up wife, she's RN and just pulled 5 straight 12+ hour shifts. BFA (Bitc.. from Acclaim) starts threatening wife about going on credit report for the next 7 years and they will "RUIN" our credit rating all for $76.00 that was supposedly "cancelled" 15 months earlier.

Wife tells BFA that I called Arch and cancelled last year, that I had even written to cancel.

BFA tells wife that they have no record of our cancelling the contract and a "Phone Call" is not an acceptable method for cancelling.

In order to cancel the contract a letter must be sent to the Houston office with account # and pager number (they couldn't tell us the pager number on the bill) and "Must" be acknowledged from ARCH as being cancelled or we still owe the $76.00.

I have already contacted the BBB on Arch and Acclaim, and will contact the FCC about Arch's business practices regarding cancellation of contracts.

What really gets me is, "What Part of Cancel" don't they understand?? !!@#@@#@#$$$%&%Y*&$%^.

Joe White

Corbin, KY

Comment On This

i have had the same problem and have spent the last hour reading many many postings with the same problem from this company there has to be some way we can all get together to shut this unprofessional business down there is no doubt in my mind they are illegal business practices all the complaints are the same no bill service cancelled then a year later it shows up on your credit further more when i started the service i had two pagers the company was offering a 60 dollar rebate after you send in the receipt and wait 6 to 8 weeks but when i received the rebate which came in the form of a chack one had a misspelled name so my bank wouldnt take it and the other check bounced go figure DO NOT USE ARCH WIRELESS THEY ARE CROOKS!!!!!!