As explained in yesterday's LA Times, the practice of phone company "cramming" -- that is, the placement of bogus charges on your phone bill -- has gotten out of control:
Cramming — the process of placing unauthorized charges on phone bills — has grown to epidemic proportions and affects 15 million to 20 million people each year, said Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski, who should know. These charges are often so surreptitious that consumers never see them. Only 1 in about 20 victims of cramming realize it, according to an FCC study. The rest pay their bills never knowing that the total is inflated by unauthorized fees, Genachowski said. As a result, relatively minor charges add up to hundreds of dollars each year. *** Cramming charges typically amount to between 99 cents and $19.99 a month. The reason such charges are commonly overlooked is that they're often described in generic language like "service fee" or "call plan" or "membership." This happens even though the FCC's truth-in-billing rule demands clear, plain-English disclosures.
Go here to listen to a speech by FCC Chair Julius Genachowski on the topic.
Don't forget that that the companies that perpetrate cramming are the same companies that include class action bans in aribration clauses in their take-it-or-leave-it contracts with consumers. These are the bans that the Supreme Court has said the states are powerless to render unenforceable through state-law unconscionability doctrine.
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