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Phone Customers Pay $2B Yearly In Bogus Fees
Hugh Pickens writes writes "CNN reports that a one-year study by the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee shows about $2 billion a year in 'mystery fees' show up on the landline phone bills of Americans. Known as cramming, the extra charges include:long distance service, subscriptions for Internet-related services, access to restricted websites, entertainment services with a 900 area code, collect calls, and club memberships. The Commerce Committee's report says phone companies receive a small fee — often just a dollar or two — for allowing charges from third-party vendors to appear on their bills but due to the large number of customers the charges eventually add up. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan told the panel people are unaware their phone numbers can be charged almost like a credit card and her investigations indicate customers are not even getting services in return. 'My office has yet to see a legitimate third-party charge on a bill,' says Madigan, who added most customers don't detect the charges on their bills. Senator Jay Rockefeller says Congress needs to pass legislation to protect customers from unauthorized third-party charges on their phone bills because the telephone industry has failed to prevent the practice. 'It's pretty obvious at this point that voluntary guidelines aren't solving this problem,' says Rockefeller. 'It's time for us to take a new look at this problem and find a way to solve it once and for all.'"
Every time I turn around it seems like there's a new way to game the easy systems in place for every-day-modern-life. The credit game has no security -- it relies of trusting lots and lots of strangers with "secret numbers" and bits of information that, when used, is "you." The phone bills have no security either. And all the while, we see fraud over and over and over again with almost no punishment or pursuit of the perpetrators while the enablers of all of this persist in using the system because the benefits them are apparently outweighing the problems or them... not the problems for the customers, but for them... they don't care about the customers.
Honestly they need to default to all this crap being blocked and you have to call to enable it.
What, and miss out on $2B a year? Phone companies (like many other companies) know that many people are just too damned lazy to go over their bill every month. And of those who do check, there's a percentage who are too lazy to actually do anything about it. While it is absolutely wrong for them to do this, when did ethics ever win against profit?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
People need to publicall call companies DISHONEST when they do things like that.
They do. All the time!
Problem is it changes nothing. A few lucky people can live without a phone (or a credit card, or internet, or whatever competition-limited utility you want to talk about) but most have little choice but to bend over and take it.
The president of my ISP could come to my house and piss on my shoes .. and I'd probably keep my subscription. They are the only provider .. and I kinda need internet to live.
"...It's time for us to take a new look at this problem and find a way to solve it once and for all."
Uh, you want to solve the problem of effective capitalism (a.k.a. greed and corruption) "once and for all"? Uhhh, yeah...good luck with that shit.
And asking Congress to step in? Congress should probably pick up a mirror first and wipe that kettle black off their face. I guarantee the average American is far more concerned with the trillions wasted by our Government and Congress than they are about an extra $10 on the phone bill.
Oh, and let's not forget about this. We're so focused on telcos and yet here we are, 20+ years later, and still cannot seem to order individual cable channels, and instead are forced (i.e. "crammed") into bundled packages and services. Let's not be ignorant and think this is a "new" problem, or one revolving around only telco providers. Everyone does it, it's all about the verbiage (fee vs. package deal)
Are you retarded or something?
Most people don't look at their bills at all. Why? Paperless billing. My bank, credit card company, utility company, mobile, internet, TV and phone company all want me to switch to paperless billing. A few credit cards actually gave you a credit for going paperless. I know from personal experience that when I get the email notice of a new statement, I peek at the dollar value. if it looks about right I rarely click through to the actual statement. I guarantee you a lot of people don't even go this far.
Thing is, if it's just a buck or two per month it's really not worth my time to wait on hold for an hour to get it fixed. Especially since I'll have to wait, get escalated, wait again, get denied and ask for a supervisor, wait again, and then maybe get my $2 back. I can find better ways to get that money in that time.
when you have to have training to properly read your bill - there is a problem, and it isn't always the users in this case.
phone companies go out of their way to make the bill hard to read and understand, and to make bogus things look legit (at least in my experience)
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
It is not theft because large corporations profit from it. At least that is the best explanation I can derive from observing the US justice system.
Incorrect... If it had been Pelosi, she would be paid off by the phone companies, or otherwise given an offer she can't refuse. It is pointless to vilify an individual person or party. The authority itself is corrupt
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone