Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Cramming on the phone bill

The Wall St Journal has run two articles on cramming in the last week. Cramming is the practice of the phone company to pin charges from third parties (porn sites, get rich quick schemes, telemarketers, etc) onto phone bills. In many cases the harried home owner, trying to get the bills paid, just writes a check covering the phoney third party charges. The Journal mentioned several regulatory actions in the works to slow it down.
The phone company should NEVER bill customers for anything except phone service. Third parties who want to get paid should submit a bill, on their letter head, with an self addressed return envelope inclosed. The phone company should not assist anyone in getting money out of their customers.
We can do something about this. The New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission regulates our phone company and can tell them to stop cramming.

No comments: