Check Every Line Of Your Phone Bill For CRAMMING!
Most people have never heard of it, but it became allowed when Congress’s telecommunications act of 1996 permitted third-party charges on local phone bills.
The unauthorized implementation of these third-party charges is known as “cramming,” the billing of fake charges on your phone bill to benefit good-for-nothing corporations who are actually outright thieves.
This practice is becoming a monster and most people don’t know it, but they are paying for things every month that they did not order or even realize is on the bill, since the wordage often looks like it might be legitimate. Many think they are simply paying their “phone bill” when actually other entities are piggybacking to secretly stick it to you.
Perpertrators make millions for doing nothing but billing an unsuspectinig pubic and Congress won’t do anything about it, probably because perps have lined officials’ pockets with kickbacks. Otherwise, action would likely have been taken to disrupt this outright horse-thievery.
The publisher of the Iconoclast was recently “crammed” — twice!
What we found when we recently did a complete audit of one of our phone bills was that there were unexplained charges.
First, we realized that the phone company itself had been charging a monthly fee regarding our phone system for several years — a system we owned outright. To us, the wording had been disguised on the bill. When we called to be reimbursed the money stolen from us we were told it would take about four weeks to investigate. At the same time, we noticed a third-party charge that had been on the bill a few months and asked what it was. We ended up getting into a conference call with the third-party vendor and the telephone company. When the third party was finally satisfied that we ordered nothing from them since we were unaware of who they were, they agreed to credit our bill, but it would take awhile. So here we were, on hold for a four-week investigation for which we would be informed of the outcome.
Three months later, we received a check in the mail for partial payment of the telephone company’s fraud and since there had been no explanation or follow-up, we made a call to the company. Here, we were informed that only a partial payment of reimbursement from the telephone company could be made on its illegitimate charges since there was a “statute of limitations” in play and that it was partially OUR FAULT that they were allowed to steal money from us since we had not called them on it earlier. Therefore, we had made a donation (?) to the phone company. Additionally, the third-party crammer’s stolen money from us would appear on our next bill as a credit, we were told.
We were informed during the conversation when we wanted to rest assured that this third-party had ceased billing us that there remained a third-party charge (another third-party company) — one that creates websites. I informed the operator that we do our own websites and knew nothing about this third-party vendor. Again, a conference call was made and the perp was downright offensive, outlining a bunch of demanding and rude-like questions to set the tone of the conversation. The end result was that he was a scammer and crammer who said he would cease these charges, to which we will be supposedly credited in the future — so we guess we made a no-interest loan to him with the money he stole from us initially. All legal. Thanks, Congress!
The wordage of phone bills is often quite vague so you don’t always know if it is third-party. Look closely under “services,” however, and be prepared to call your phone company for anything listed, because it could look like a legitimate phone company charge even when it is not. Sometimes the charges are quite small and sometimes larger (maybe $100 a month or more). Look for phone system charges, as well, for they are often bogus. Also, examine the bill for services that some companies charge on behalf of crammers (like ESBI, ILD, and Americatel, to name a few).
Simply put, you cannot trust your phone company or the Congressional perps who set this up. It is ridiculous to allow phone companies to add third-party charges to your bill. It is actually outright thievery and should be dealt with accordingly. However, right now it is legal for big corporations to steal. They are immune from justice. It’s just a “mistake” when the phone companies get caught.
They’ll review it and get back to you. Later. Much later.
Yeah, right!
— W. Leon Smith
