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FCC Plans To Stop Cell Phone Bill Mystery Fees

Posted by Soulskill on from the eight-dollars-for-occupying-a-transmission-medium dept.

GovTechGuy writes "FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said Monday that his agency is going to make it harder for mobile carriers to hit customers with mystery fees on their monthly bills. The practice, known as 'cramming,' typically involves charging customers between $1.99 and $19.99 per month for services they either didn't use or didn't request. The FCC announced fines totaling nearly $12 million against four carriers for cramming last week."

2 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Well done. by ep32g79 · · Score: 5, Informative
    The four companies that were smacked with this fine are:

    Main Street Telephone for $4,200,000
    VoiceNet Telephone, LLC for $3,000,000
    Cheap2Dial Telephone, LLC for $3,000,000
    Norristown Telephone, LLC for $1,500,000

    Looks like either the majors are not engaging in this practice or too large of Goliaths for the FTC to consider throwing stones at.

  2. The problem is not "transparency". by mrsam · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From TFA:

    the proposed steps would increase transparency and make it easier for consumers to understand the meaning of charges on their monthly phone bills.

    BS. Sheer nonsense. The problem is not that the bills are hard to "understand". The problem is the cramming in the first place. Remove the ability for any arbitrary fly-by-night op to place charges on anyone's bill, if they know their phone number, and the problem will mysteriously disappear.

    Cramming takes advantage of social engineering. "Wanna a HOT NEW LADY GAGA ringtone!!!! Just type in your phone number on our web site. (tiny font: $9.99 per month charge applies)".

    And that's how a "simple-minded" acquaintenance of mine ended up with $40 bucks worth of charges on her bill, some years ago.

    Get rid of the ability for anyone to cram charges, without a written notice by YOU, to YOUR cellphone carrier, and there's no more cramming. Of course, the cell-phone carriers will fight tooth and nail. I'm sure they make a nice profit skimming off their share of all the crammed charges.