Competitive phone companies face $11.7M in FCC fines over mystery fees

The FCC has charged four phone companies with $11.7 million fines for apparently levying "mystery fees" on their customers in a practice known as "cramming."

Fines were issued against Main Street Telephone ($4.2 million); VoiceNet Telephone, LLC ($3 million); Cheap2Dial Telephone, LLC ($3 million); and Norristown Telephone, LLC ($1.5 million). With up to 30 days to respond, the service providers can either pay or contest the fines.

Service providers that engage in "cramming" will basically place unauthorized charges that can range from $1.99 up to $19.99 per month on a consumer's voice bill. Of course, service providers will bury these feels in multipage bills with labels that make it hard for a consumer to detect.

"Cramming attacks consumers in the pocketbook, where it really hurts," FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Michele Ellison in a release. "The Enforcement Bureau takes today's actions to protect thousands of consumers who appear to have been hoodwinked into paying for services they never wanted, ordered, or used."

In addition to levying the fines on these four providers, the FCC released an Enforcement Advisory on cramming.

While Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) applauded the FCC's actions, he's afraid they won't "be enough to stop the problem."

For more:
- see the release (PDF)

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