BBG Communications Phone Scam

120 thoughts on “BBG Communications Phone Scam”

1. I, too, have just returned from Australia and found a suspicious BBG charge of $75.96 on my debit card statement. I made one call that lasted 6 or 7 minutes from Sydney Int. Airport to the US. Can’t believe this many people have had the same problem.

2. Put my name in the list. I, too, got scammed by this company. Flying from Atlanta to Surabaya (Indonesia)last summer (with my 2 children, 6 and 4) with layover in JFK,Frankfurt and Changi. Arrived in Frankfurt only to find out that the flight would be delayed for about 7 hours.
   After 36 hours since we left Atlanta, arrived safely in Singapore and missed the connecting flight to Surabaya. Got the new boarding passes and called my mom when to pick us up. Of course without having local currencies, my last hope was using my credit card. Trying to call several times, 3 maybe, never got connected. Few days later I found out there were 2 charges, $31 each, from this company on my credit card, for unconnected call. Call my husband in the US to sort this out. He called the credit card company who suggested to call BBG, and he did. The BBG guy offered 50% discount which my husband refused and so they wanted 2 months to infestigate this matter. I called them several days ago only to find out that according to their record at least 1 call went to answering machine, which I doubted since my mother never had that gadget. Thus, he offered me a discount which I declined again. Called my bank to dispute the charges (this was in the mid morning). After doing some research, I called BBG again in the evening. Another person answered the phone and refused to return my money, but I kept pushing her and annoyed her a lot probably so she put me on hold. When she returned she promised me to open an investigation on this case, which I refused as there was already an investigation. I asked about the result of the investigation, which she couldn’t tell me. I told her that I called this morning asking about the answer and now I wanted to hear about the result of their investigation again. What she told me was completely different from what the other guy had said. She didn’t mention anything about answering machine. It means when they promise you to investigate it, they are just lying and hope that you never call back.
   After some argument with her, she put me on hold again and then she told me that they would refund all the charges and that I should have seen the money back when I got my next statement. Well, after 2 or 3 days, when I checked my statement online, the money was there.
   So I think you guys should do some research first before contacting them and get ready for some arguement. If it’s not working, maybe you can try to threaten them to dispute the charges with your bank and ask the bank to chargeback BBG. Because for every chargeback, the bank usually charges between $20 to $50. Good luck.

3. Well I’m glad that my blog entry is getting so much feedback and that my scam can help the rest of you get your money back and somehow stick it to the company!

   I guess this BBG Comm thing is a “once you get burned” you will remember for life. Pass it on to all your friends!

   Thanks again for all the comments.

4. So I’m disputing the charge with my bank. I actually emailed them back and forth – they offered to refund me $92.00 of the $120.00 that they had stolen from me if I did not start a fraud investigation with my bank. Talk about shady. I refused – why should I have to pay for a call that was not connected? My bank agrees – they call it “services not rendered”. So, they issued me a temporary credit and I’m going to send all my info to the bank.

5. I was charged over $100 for four calls from LAX to Arizona (just a state away).. I was talking for probably 40 minutes all up but that is just RIDICULOUS since it was in the same country!!
   i’m contesting it! these guys are running a global scam and raking in millions!

6. I just checked my bank statement. I got burned for 3 charges for $36.00 / call. I checked my wife’s cell phone statement and it showed only 1 call. I made 2 calls I remember. The first was to her voicemail, under 1 minute. The second was a (3) minute call. I got hit in Frankfurt’s airport on the T-mobile public phones. They had rates posted on them, but they obviously weren’t adhered to. After reading all the above posts, I am just going to start w/ my CC company and dispute the charges. I wish I would have taken a picture of the phone rates, but who knew I would have needed to. BBG is definately a bottom feeder.

7. It’s curious how the chamber of commerce of Otay Mesa near San Diego borders allows BBG Communications’s and Rafael Galicot the G.M of the company to be based in the San Diego area and keep cheating all of us.

   http://www.otaymesa.org/memb_dir/53_Telecom.html

8. I have also been ripped off. I made a call from KL Airport to China (admittedly to a mobile) and when I got back to Australia, I found 2 charges of $51.43 & $51.46 on my credit card.

   I can’t remember exactly how long the call was, but I am sure it wasn’t that long, because I was aware that the call costs might be more expensive than from my home phone, but I never expected THAT much more!

   I am also sure I only made 1 call but I been charged for 2. I am also going to start by disputing the cost with my CC company.

   I am heading back to China (this time through Singapore) next week so will check out the phones at the airport and if they are BBG, I will check to see if the rates are actually displayed and take a picture, as I can’t remember if they were!

9. My husband and I was scammed in Changi airport Singapore.Two calls from Singapore to China. Each call were under 1 min. For those 2 calls, we got a grand total of 82 USD in charges ?! What a rip-off !
   This is very serious case of mis-selling since we could not find any display of calling rate before using BBG. Such criminal behavior has exposed thousands of customers to a higher risk of financial loss than they are willing to accept.
   So lucky to share stories and get good advices from you above. Now we are doing whatever we can to strive for a refund. Last but not least, we will let more people know BBG to avoid such trap.

10. I too have just been stung by this company!!! I was in the Bahamas and made a call to a usa number, Like others have said the line kept cutting off after a minute or so and of course i kept swiping my card to continue my call a total of 6 times!!!! The result a bill for $310 US dollars for approx 9 minutes talk time,, These robbing bastards should be closed down there were NO call charge rates on display and no contact numbers for the service provider!!! I have disputed all transactions via my credit card company.

11. Add me to the list as well! My wife was in England and called me collect from a friends home, for 18 minutes I was charged by International Satellite Comm $95.64 and then two additional charges from BBG Comm for “non-subscriber fee”…$3.41 and “set use fee”….$3.83 The total amount for 18 minutes was $102.88, about $5.31 per minute!!! When I spoke to customer service they had no idea of how or what to subscribe to!
    I sent them a letter today and a check for $20.00 to cover the cost of the calls at .99 cents per minute and $2.18 to cover the connection fee, they can sue me for the rest!!! We need to put a stop to this, if anyone wants to start a Class Action law suite count me in. My suggestion is to make a fair offer to them, never ever use a credit card, ask for rates in advance. We need to stop ripoffs like this every chance we can.

    Good Luck Everybody

12. Just got ripped off myself after making two phone calls and 3 unconnected calls from Hotel Lindbergh in Paris to America – almost $300.00 worth. Watching my bank account dwindle from charge after charge. Have been in hysterics over it. Sent an email to Neomi and waiting for a response. After that I will call my bank and file a fraud complaint.

13. Just another sad story. I was just hit for $100 AUD for a 20 minute call from Prague to Switzerland. No upfront information, just an urgency to call after a problem at the airport. I could live with this, as long as they don´t charge my account again for calls I didn´t make.

    Lesson Learned!

14. Hi again,

    Don´t give up and you will get money back!
    The Better Business Bureau of San Diego has done a great job in getting me 70% back. That is: http://www.sandiego.bbb.org
    In the end the big problem except for BBG are all the airports that lease out their space to BBG. If everyone ripped of also give the airport management a call then we can start changing things around.

    Best of luck,

    Bjorn Svensson

15. This is insane. At least I got a fraud report from my bank card right away for $60 worth of one call to a phone that was out of service. I will pursue this as well!

16. Count me as another of BBGs
    ripoffs. I made a 5 min call from
    an Eircom booth in Trim,Ireland to
    Dublin and I ended up with 2
    charges on my MC for about 14 USD
    each. I actually got a fraud call
    from MC asking about these 2
    charges and then they took them
    off my account. It seems like BBG
    is well known to the card companies
    The public officials who permit
    this crap to happen are doing
    their airports and hotels a great
    disservice.

17. Nothing has changed.!!! I tried to phone Australia twice from the Singapore airport in September 2008 using my credit card in a public phone and was unable to get through either time. My credit card statement has arrived with debits for $A 51.46 & $A 51.43. At least they are consistent with their rip off. Glad I did’nt get through as I haven’t any idea what a genuine charge would have been.

18. To any of you who find this page looking for BBG: my debit card was charged $100 for calls from Costa Rica. I disputed the charges with my bank – no detailed explanation, just said I didn’t recognize these charges. My bank contacted BBG, but it seems they never replied to the dispute so after the required 3 month wait I was told the credits (which my bank issued as soon as I disputed) should be considered final. I got 100% of the charges reversed. Don’t let them rip you off, dispute the charges with your bank!

19. Be careful!
    My wife recently called me from a public phone booth in the center of London using her credit card.
    For a call less than 5 minutes our dear friends charged her 32 US dollars.
    So they are not only at the airports. Probably depends on phone companies how they utilize them.

    Just started disputing the cost. Just wonder what the outcome will be.

20. Count me in on this stupid scam!! I was in Cabo San Lucas this past week for a work conference. Unfortunately my cellphone did not have service. Soooo, I thought it was a good idea to call my family to let them know I made it to Mexico safely. Boy was that a mistake. I had used the phone from my hotel room to make the international call. I tried to use my credit card but “conveniently” it was declined. So, I quickly grabbed my debit card so I could complete the call. Before I was even able to ask the question of how much the call would cost, I was already connected. My phone call went straight to an answering machine. I left message saying “hey it’s me,im here safely. my cell doesnt work so ill talk to you soon.” which probably took all of 10 seconds. Today, I checked my bank account and I have 4 different charges from BBG totaling $75.00 (thats just what I know of, there are still charges pending on my bank account) How is that possible since I only called once? That’s one expensive message! I called my bank today and cancelled my debit card. However, the charges that are still pending are for unknown amounts and will still be withdrawn from my account. This company is such a scam and I wish I could get my hands on the people that are doing this. I will attempt to dispute these charges but dont know how far that will take me. I am a hard worker, as we all are, and just dont understand how others can possibly feel good about working for this company! Karma’s a B***H and I hope they get what they deserve…

21. Charly, u must be part of the scam or else you would not be making such rude remarks. People “having enough money to travel to these places” has nothing to do with the fact that we are being robbed! I was there for a nursing conference. So, Reguardless if people have money or not has no reference to what this is all about!

22. count me in
    travelling through Frankfurt airport on october 8th, gate change went unnoticed, so we had to call our destination to alert the driver that we wouldnt be there at the scheduled time, called from payphone, couldnt get through, tried another number couldnt get through, finally tried a third number, got through, but person on the other end couldn’t hear us, had to hang up, called from the payphone beside it, and of course this guy wasnt answering another call from a similar number if nobody is going to pick up right? try other numbers again, never went to voicemail any of the times, finally got through to somebody, spoke on the phone for about 2 minutes.

    charges begin to appear on Oct 20/2008 (all in CDN)

    Oct 20, 2008 CALL FROM GERMNY OCT8 800 608 05 41.94
    Oct 20, 2008 CALL FROM GERMNY OCT8 800 608 05 41.91
    Oct 30, 2008 CALL FROM GERMNY OCT8 800 608 05 70.60
    Oct 30, 2008 CALL FROM GERMNY OCT8 800 608 05 83.42

    then today i notice my credit card has yet again been charged (not yet posted online, but i noticed the balance difference, called bank to investigate) Guess who???
    BBG London for the amounts of $85.46, and $72.32

    The Visa guy on the phone told me i will have to wait until the charges are posted to file a dispute, so on monday or tuesday when the charges are posted, i will be doing just that.

    I did not see any rates on the phone itself, nor was i told of the rates by the operator who connected me. also, when we inquired about a collect call she said we could not call collect

    so, until i see future charges, this is almost $400 CDN for 1 successful call. on my way through frankfurt next week, i will be further examining the phone and speaking with the operator, then following up with Visa.

    hopefully i get at least some of this money back, if not all of it.

    ridiculous!

23. just to clarify, those charges are $41.94, $41.91, $70.60, $83.42

24. I amn not sure if the same company ripped me off, but they did it the same way as all the above. My daughter was stranded at the airport in France on her way home to Canada. The airlines went bancrupt the next day, but they kept them at the terminal for 24 hours, so she called collect after first 5 hours to let us know that she is still relativly ok. All together she called 4 times, desperate, hungry, not knowing when she is coming home. Bell Canada billed me $68 for each call, not even 2 min. each. The company they had to pay is called International Call – their number is 1-877-252-9222. Has anyone delt with them yet??? could use advice on how to best handle the call (I am expecting a call back from supervisor, will see….)
    This is rediculos, it’s like handing someone in the disaster zone a bottle of water and saying… two months later… by the way ..that will be $250.00

25. Dear Charly Johnson,

    My husband didn’t get scammed by BBG from some 5 star resort somewhere in the tropics, we can’t afford that. He is a US Marine, coming home from Iraq after being deployed for 1 year. He called home from a pay phone during a layover in Germany, and we got charged 108 USD for a 10 minute phone call. Do you think we deserved to be charged that much?

    He was not the only one using those pay phones to call home either. His whole unit, which consists of over 150 Marines, were there as well, and according to him, half of them were using those pay phones to call home. Some of them were on the phones longer than 10 minutes. I am sick to my stomach thinking about how much money this company has taken from all those Marines. And trust me, they don’t make millions, and 95 percent of them can’t afford vacations to the tropics.

26. I am Also a US Marine and half our unit used this stupid phone were all disputing it to our Banks, i hate that company.

27. I too used their service just want to let everyone know how good their customer service is. If you are a first time user you will be credited back in full in my case $67.11 CAD. No need to freak out. The number provided on my Mastecard statement was 1-800-608-0855. Of course I had to call LD from Mexico but you have to fax a request to dispute a charge with Mastercard anyways which would have cost me the same. Also I got a free 10 minute call to Canada out of it as well

    cheers all

28. For real

    CALL FROM MEXICO NOV4 – 800 608 0855 — 11/17/2008 11/15/2008 8605 $67.11
    CALL FROM MEXICO NOV4 – 800 608 0855 — 11/26/2008 11/15/2008 2302 -$67.11

29. hola,

    more or less same story here…

    So couple of months back, I made 4 phone calls from Frankfurt airport to Croatia. 260 $. I called the company’s customer service, and they told me since I am a mastercard holder and a first time customer they will return me the full amount. It takes 30-60 business days to get that money. Well 60 business days have passed, I called them again, and they were well it should be on your next credit card statement. Well I can see my statement online, and no money jet. So their supervisor after me yelling will start the internal investigation that will take from (try to guess) 30 – 60 business days.
    I will write to Frankfurt airport, and as somebody mentioned above, try to contact the San Diego Chamber of Commerce.

    I already posted something on the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-666527.html website.
    They can be also found as
    BBG Communications Inc
    BBG International
    Call International
    Call To International
    Farecall Corporation
    International Calling Services
    International Communications
    International Satelite Communications
    National Telephone Collection Services
    Network Opr Services
    NTCS
    US Satellite Communications
    (check out the http://www.amcostarica.com/022806.htm )

    Also check out their rating on San Diego Better Business Bureau
    http://sandiego.bbb.org/WWWRoot/Report.aspx?site=26&bbb=1186&firm=1040993#rating

    To add on top of everything, these are bad people. I just read the posts above how they took the money from the marines. Well I am a student. A graduate student in US, came here from Croatia. I managed to scrape the money last summer to go home, and i missed my connection in Frankfurt, just called my parents to tell them what’s happening with me, and here we go – a 260 $ charge! They feed on the misery and misfortune of other people and they should be stopped. No meter they give me the money back or not, they are bad bad people. The funny thing that I find, that in here if I park my car wrong, I get a parking ticket and have !!! to pay it. And as I can see on this website and many many others, nobody is doing anything to stop them.

30. I was ripped off too,luckely I got my money back.
    What everyone can do file a complain with FTC,here is their website

    http://www.ftc.gov/

    and hopefully they will shut down the MONSTER.

31. I was travelling from Colombo to Perth on the 16th October 2008 and was on transit in Changi Airport Singapore.When it was announced that my Qantas flight to Perth was being delayed by over an hour I rang my wife in Perth from a Telephone booth in the Airport to infornm her about this.

    Just spoke for about 3 minutes .. My God, it had cost me Australian $ 39.49 for this. This is atrocious as one gets to know about this only after checking the credit card acc. and people get exploited. I trust Singapore Air Port Authorities wii take immediate steps to close down this booth and cancel the license of this company called BBG Communications..There was no information provided about the call charges at the Booth.Had I known I would have used Singpore currency or a phone card which is much cheaper and reasonable.Singapore Government must not allow this to happen in Singapore.This kind of ruthless exploitation should not be allowed.This has happened to so many unsuspecting passengers.This company should be punished

32. Just got ripped off by these guys. My husband is in Germany and called me with this company since his calling card would not work. It was a 20 min call and it cost $107 US. I am disputing it with my credit card company. UNBELIEVABLE

33. Same story. My girlfriend travelled from Australia to Hungary through Frankfurt and made a 1-2 min phonecall to Hungary with her family just to be sure they will wait for her at Hungarian airport. Charge on credit card 55 AUS dollar. This is really unbeliavable.
    Is there anything we can do??? We should stop this somehow! I am very pissed off. Dodgie bastards!

34. 5 calls from Cancun to Toronto in December 08 – maybe 30 minutes total talk time. $370 CAD. First complaint they cut it down to $255. I thought about accepting that, until I found this site….the battle rages.

35. My story is the same. I am in the National Guard and my unit was deployed to the Middle East with a refeuling stop in Germany. We didn’t want to be there. were didn’t ask to be there. I only had $20 in my account. I was charged $50 twice for one phone call. My next check went directly to rent and bills before I could even touch it. When I caught up, I have $400 in overdraft fees. Imagine your Platoon Sergeant having to order another soldier to give you money for shaving cream. I was the first to notice, but over 50 soldiers from my compnay alone were also ripped off by this company. When I called the service number they told me I should have know to speak to the operator to find out about the hidden fees. I said nothing was posted, nor did it give me the option to speak to an operator. He said that you have to know to press 0 when it tells you to press 1 for credit card calls. I sais “So the only way to not get ripped off by this is to either have been ripped of before, or know you’re about to get ripped off”. He said it was something along those lines (they can’t agree with you). Now I’m $400 shorter than I should have been for sending Christmas presents back home. If I fly back through that airport on my way home I’m cutting every single wire they got.