BUYER BEWARE: "CRAMMING" FILLS THE BILL !

Consumers, look at your local phone bill closely each month. We’ve gotten used to charges for 911, multiple types of taxes, combined fees on one invoice for local service and "short"long distance toll calls. Because of the many types of items that appear and the many pages it takes to get one month’s bill to us (THAT’S a topic by itself), we’ve gotten to the point of ignoring the middle and going straight to the bottom line. After all, the bottom line is what affects us most, isn’t it? It is at our house!

But be careful! You could be CRAMMED.

Cramming is the newest twist in telephone consumer fraud. You may see a line on the bill that is simply labeled "Premium Service" or maybe just "Miscellaneous Charges" and the fees will range from $4.95 to $49.95 per month. These charges have been passed through to your local phone company from some other unscrupulous billing entity and you’ve rarely gotten anything for the charges reflected on the bill.

You may have read an ad somewhere promoting Voicemail, Pagers, Personal Toll Free Numbers, Dating Services, Internet, etc. and called a toll free number to inquire about features and pricing. You may have signed up . . .and if you did, sorry folks but you owe the money whether you got anything or not. If you didn’t sign up and the charges appear any way, you’ve been CRAMMED! This is lucrative business because these companies submit the charges to the local phone company to appear on your bill and they get paid right away. These fly-by-night operators know that it can takes months to iron out the disputes and can be long gone before their shysterhood comes to the surface.

Cramming is spreading across the U.S. like a brush fire. Responding the complaints from California to New York, the Federal Communications Committee called a special summitt meeting in an effort to find a way to stop it. But count on a long wait before the boys in Washington come to an agreement on a fix. And, count on it to cost the consumer (YOU AND ME) more in the long run.

If you see charges on your phone bill that you don’t recognize, call the number listed on the bill immediately after the line item. If the answer received doesn’t satisfy you, don’t be afraid to mention "Public Utility Commission" or the "FCC" as the next stops you’ll be making. And, call your local service provider. They probably won’t issue you credit but they’ll gladly get on the band wagon to fight it out with the sleaze balls on your behalf.