Yesterday I paid some money off a credit card. It's not one I use anymore but I am carrying a balance and trying to pay it off. In fact, I chose not to receive statements but just log on and pay it monthly. Why would I need statements? I'm not using the card. But yesterday I noticed something fishy. My balance wasn't going down as fast as it should be. So I look at my on line statements and find I am being continuously billed by two companies $29.95 per month.

Luckily, the telephone numbers are on the statements so I call them. I call and call and call with no answer. Eventually, one does answer. It is a service that I believed I had canceled over a year ago but according to them I did not. I ask to cancel and am told I can only cancel on line. I tell them I don't recall my account details to log on to cancel. They tell me they can't help me.

I demand that they cancel. They say then to log on and cancel on line. Are we going in circles here or what? after 20 minutes I am exhausted by the circles. They won't cancel my billing and I can't cancel the billing AND they deny I ever canceled in the past so won't refund my money. By the way, the company concerned is Innoport. The service was for phone number forwarding.

Let's say a word about Innoport. They are thieves and scum. They hide behind the idea that they can't cancel my account because it could be someone else's account when in fact, I can prove who I am, provide my credit card number, billing address, social security number and my father's middle name! Their service didn't work either - which is why I canceled it over a year ago. I was sick of folks trying to call me and getting a series of clicks and nothing else.

So what can I do?

I call my credit card company. They are sympathetic and take the details of the two companies. They provide a refund of the last months billing - pending their investigation results of course.

I asked shall I just close this credit card down? That's where I learned something that I want to pass on. No, he said. That won't help. The law is on their side for continuous billings by credit card done over the internet. Until you cancel the accounts, they can continue to bill you and if you don't pay, go to debt collection agency and ruin your credit.

Lovely.

So, I can't get either service to cancel so I have to keep paying? No, he says, we will tell them that you have made good effort to cancel and that so far as we are concerned they must.

OK. I'm confused now. I'm still confused.

Bu the moral of this story is think twice before signing up for continuous billing on line. They have all the legal rights and you have none. All they have to do is not answer the phone or create some nonsense rules about cancellation and you just keep on paying and paying and paying and paying.....