Your Phone Bill: Deregulation Means You Pay Extra!
Anyone catch this? News 10 is on the case:
Bogus charges on your Frontier phone bill? That’s what one local man says he found. Are you being ripped-off too? News 10NBC spent the day trying to get answers.
“It is wrong. They don’t have to do it. They shouldn’t do it,” said Tom Powers.
He is a retired accountant. He knows his numbers, and this past June he noticed a little bump in his Frontier phone bill. Mysterious charges started showing up under the company name ILD Teleservices.
The guy calls up the 800 number they give, and gets the charge removed. So it really wasn’t supposed to be there in the first place. How can this happen?
This appears to be an old scam called cramming. That’s where companies “cram” charges on bills, hoping customers won’t notice.
Nice. And it’s up to you to find it.
“Other carriers can be included on Frontier’s bill,” explained Pat Coakley of the Better Business Bureau. She says you need to take the time to look over your bills. “How many of these go by and nobody even notices?” asked Coakley. “I would definitely ask questions.”
And when it comes to ILD, the BBB gives the company a grade of “F.”
But what’s the underlying cause of this?
Cramming is a byproduct of the deregulation of the telephone industry.
So, to sum up, deregulation means you get extra charges, which you have to find, and you have to take time out to have removed. Where do I sign up?
It’s almost as awesome as our health insurance company outsourcing all their paperwork to my wife! More on that another time.
Government regulations: they don’t just protect you from lead paint in toys. But what the hey, let’s go ahead and Unshackle Upstate!
Good grab.
I have often felt that banks do the same thing, putting charges on your account that are not correct, hoping that you won’t notice and won’t complain. I caught them at it once, called, and they removed the charge. I wonder how many people didn’t notice or didn’t call.
Now, I’ll make sure to check all my bills regularly for this type of stuff, like my RG&E bill, for crap like this.