Save a Bundle on Telecom Services
Cable, phone and Internet packages dangle attractive prices.
Tying up your telecom services in a single package is the lure many local telephone and cable companies are casting in selected areas around the U.S. For about $100 a month, you can get cable or satellite TV, local and long-distance telephone service, plus high-speed Internet service. In addition to paying just one bill, you have just one company to call if you have a technical or billing issue. Then again, this one-stop-shop approach can backfire if your vendor's customer service stinks.Many bundled deals (often marketed as "triple plays" or "triple packs") are limited-time offers ranging from three to 12 months. The Comcast Triple Play, for instance, includes Internet, phone and cable service for $99 per month for one year. After the year is up, will the hammer fall -- and the price skyrocket? Not necessarily. You can expect Comcast's package to cost "about $130 per month," says company spokeswoman Jenni Moyer.
Patrick Matters, who lives in Indianapolis, signed up for Comcast's Triple Play about a year ago. He pays $100 to $110 per month ("a little more if my daughters buy a movie"), a savings of more than $50 over his previous a la carte plans. At $130 per month, he'd still be ahead.
The Triple Play is for new customers only. But current Comcast subscribers can also get discounts if they add new services. For example, a Comcast cable-TV customer can sign up for the company's phone service for $33 per month for one year. If you're already a subscriber, check your vendor's Web site for bundled discounts.
Some vendors are offering quadruple plays that add wireless phone service. AT&T's Quad Pack, for instance, bundles Internet, telephone, Dish Network satellite TV and Cingular Wireless service for $123 per month. Its Triple Pack -- Internet, telephone and wireless -- costs $95 per month.
Regional offers. Bundles vary depending on where you live. For example, in Qwest's 14-state region, the starting price for a package including Internet, phone and DirecTV is about $90 per month. In southern California, bundles from Time Warner Cable with Internet, phone and cable start at about $100. And in areas of Massachusetts and other states where Verizon has wired homes with its FiOS high-speed fiber-optic service, subscribers can get Internet, telephone and nearly 200 digital cable TV and music channels for $105 per month. Verizon offers bundles with satellite TV in other markets.
Although price is a big draw, a bundle isn't worth it if it excludes services you want. The AT&T Quad Pack, for instance, allows only 100 minutes per month of direct-dial calls from your home. More long-distance minutes cost 9 cents each.
And there may be other drawbacks. If a single high-speed line brings all communications to your home, you could lose your phone, cable and Internet service at the same time if the line goes down. Some digital phone services that use the Internet for voice calls don't support faxing -- a significant shortcoming for home-based businesses.
And bundles make it more difficult to change providers for a specific service -- for instance, switching from cable to satellite TV. Of course, from a telecom company's perspective, that's the whole idea.
Still, the convenience and relatively low prices make bundled services appealing. And there should be plenty of competition as telephone and cable companies duke it out.
CUB pushed for law to fight
ReplyDeletephony phone charges
Over the weekend, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill to block a phone scam so lucrative that mobsters once used it as a money-making scheme. CUB spent months working closely with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to push for the new law to protect consumers from "cramming"—when you're charged for phone-related services you never ordered. "Cramming is just another word for fraud," CUB Executive Director David Kolata said at Sunday's bill-signing ceremony. "It's a scam that must end." Find out how you can block unauthorized charges from your phone bill for free—and help CUB fight for you in more than $1 billion in utility cases before state regulators and the courts.
CUB pushed for law to fight phony phone charges
ReplyDeleteOver the weekend, Gov. Pat Quinn signed a bill to block a phone scam so lucrative that mobsters once used it as a money-making scheme. CUB spent months working closely with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to push for the new law to protect consumers from "cramming"—when you're charged for phone-related services you never ordered. "Cramming is just another word for fraud," CUB Executive Director David Kolata said at Sunday's bill-signing ceremony. "It's a scam that must end." Find out how you can block unauthorized charges from your phone bill for free.
June 4, 2009—Dorothy Denton discovered that her telephone bill had a mysterious charge called “enhancement service.” After trying for months to remove the $13-$16 fee, she had a new name for it: “Fraud with a capital F!”
CUB told the Oak Lawn nurse about a scam called “cramming”--when charges are added to phone bills for services consumers didn’t order. In Denton’s case, and many others, the actual service came from another company, separate from the phone company.
Call your phone company to block unauthorized third-party charges for free:
AT&T 1-800-288-2020 1-800-288-2020
Verizon 1-800-483-3000 1-800-483-3000
“You have no idea how angry I was,” said Denton, who still doesn’t exactly know what the charge was for. “With everything going on with our politicians, here’s yet another company lining their pockets with our money.”
Denton, who was featured in an investigative report on cramming by CBS 2 Chicago, refused to pay the charge. She called her phone company, AT&T, one more time, informed it she had contacted CUB, and said she was going to file a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General’s office if the charge wasn’t removed once and for all. That did the trick.
Calling herself CUB’s biggest fan, Denton worries about seniors who don’t look at their bills. “How many of them are still being scammed?”
Third parties are allowed to use the phone bill to charge for services. Under deregulation of the telephone industry, that’s been done for years to encourage competition. Unfortunately, it’s also encouraged cramming, which works like this:
Victims get a telemarketing call or junk mail. Maybe they call a 1-800 number or visit a Web site that offers a “free” service or entry in a sweepstakes. Maybe they don’t do anything. Suddenly, their phone bill has a vaguely named charge, such as “voice mail” or “membership fee,” usually stuck on the last page of the bill.
Cramming is so lucrative that the infamous Gambino crime family allegedly made hundreds of millions of dollars off it. Illinois recently sued a “credit-repair service,” accusing it of cramming thousands of customers with a $9.99 fee, including a local police department and a public library’s “dial-a-story” telephone line. Even Rep. John Bradley of Marion, the anti-rate hike crusader who’s no stranger to fighting shady business practices, complained to CUB about $30 in charges for services he had never ordered.
Since then, CUB has worked closely with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and chief sponsors, state Sen. Michael Bond and state Rep. John Bradley, to pass legislation to better protect consumers against cramming. CUB has called on phone companies to set up security systems similar to credit card companies that flag suspicious charges.
Still, reading the monthly phone bill carefully is the best cramming defense.
What if I'm crammed?
ReplyDeleteCall the cramming company at the number listed on your bill.
Call the local phone company. Tell it you’re disputing the charge and you’re only paying for your regular calling fees - the undisputed part of your bill. Make sure you agree what that undisputed amount is. Record the time of the call and the full name of the person you talk to.
If the cramming company doesn’t agree to lift the charge, file a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General’s office. Keep one copy for yourself and send the other to the cramming company.
If you pay your regular calling charges, the phone company will send the questionable fee back to the alleged crammer, forcing it to prove the charge was authorized.
You can block future third-party charges for free. Just call your local phone company (AT&T, 1-800-288-2020 1-800-288-2020 ; Verizon, 1-800-483-3000 1-800-483-3000 ).
2 Investigators Uncover Mystery Phone Bill Charges
ReplyDeleteSEND A TIP TO THE 2 INVESTIGATORS
Reporting
Pam Zekman
If you haven't taken a careful look at your phone bills, we suggest you do. State and federal regulators say complaints about unauthorized charges on both cell and land lines have doubled in the last year. The term they use for it is "cramming." CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman reports that these mystery charges can be for phone services that you never signed up for.
Legitimate charges by your phone company are high enough, but charges added on by other companies for so-called enhanced services, can make it much worse.
"I can't tell you how angry I am about this," Dorothy Denton said. "It's not fair."
For six months Dorothy Denton battled to get monthly charges totaling $65 off her bill. They included two different voicemail services and an e-mail service.
"I never ordered anything like this," Denton said.
The companies market their services on websites offering things like food coupons or discounts for merchandise, all appealing in this economy.
But when you sign up for the coupons or discounts, you might unwittingly sign up for a monthly service on your phone.
Sometimes the fees are disclosed. But they can also be easily missed and very difficult to cancel.
"Often you are dealing with three separate entities and it's tough to get to the bottom of who's ultimately responsible," said David Kolata of Citizens Utility Board.
Complaints and calls for help have doubled at the Citizens Utility Board. One came from John Bradley who happens to be a state legislator.
His March phone bill included a company's charge for an enhanced long distance set up fee of nearly $19.
"The only thing I know they're enhancing was my bill," Bradley said.
The bill also had a $12.95 voicemail charge from another company. What Bradley didn't know, until CBS 2 inquired about the case, was he'd paid that amount for 11 months, a total of $142.
"Cramming is a scam that basically relies on people not reading their bills closely. And we've seen a huge uptake in complaints related to it," Kolata said.
The companies that charged Denton and Bradley credited their accounts for all the challenged fees, but said they did nothing wrong. They said they could prove the customers authorized the orders because of personal information supplied when they signed up.
But the birth date one company had for Denton was way off.
And another company said, "he had proof of that because the last digits of my Social were 1-2-3-4, and I said, 'that's not true,'" Denton said.
When Bradley's wife contacted one company, "they gave her a birth date and her mother's maiden name which had no correlation to us whatsoever," Bradley said.
Some states have regulations designed to protect consumers before unauthorized charges crop up on their phone bills. But not Illinois.
"We think the big phone companies need to do more to address this problem," Kolata said. "Some of that may require legislation."
Now John Bradley is considering a bill that would regulate everyone, including service providers and billing companies.
"You shouldn't be able to accidently sign up for a service that you don't want, don't know what it is and don't know how you got it," Bradley said.
Spokesmen for AT&T and Verizon say they ask the outside service providers and billing companies to get customer authorizations to make sure the charges are valid.
And they give customers the company names and phone numbers if they need to challenge a fee. They also say you can prevent charges from being added to your bill by asking your phone company to put a blocker on your service.
To protect yourself from being crammed:
ReplyDeleteRead your phone bill each month to see if there are any unauthorized charges from third party service providers -- companies other than your utility.
If there are, call that company or the bill collector that acts as its middleman with your utility. Their numbers should be on your bill close to the questioned charge.
Ask them what the charge is for, and if you did not authorize it, tell them you are disputing it.
If they insist you authorized it, demand proof of that.
Inform your phone company that you are disputing the charge.
Ask your phone company how long the disputed charge has been on your bill. If you have paid in the past without realizing it, request copies of those bills so you can dispute the charges.
If you want to stop other third party service providers from charging you again, ask your phone company to put a blocker on your line.
If the company or its bill collection agency refuses to remove the unauthorized charge and credit your account, you can file a complaint with the government agencies listed below:
Illinois Attorney General: 1-800-386-5438 1-800-386-5438 (Consumer Fraud Hotline)
Federal Trade Commission: 1-877-FTC-HELP 1-877-FTC-HELP or 1-877-382-4357 1-877-382-4357; E-mail: crcmessages@ftc.gov
Federal Communications Commission: 1-888-225-5322 1-888-225-5322; E-mail fccinfo@fcc.gov or esupportfccinfo@fcc.gov
Citizens Utility Board: 1-800-669-5556 1-800-669-5556 or 312-263-4282 312-263-4282
To send a tip to the 2 Investigators, click here.
TELEPHONE COMPANIES
ReplyDeleteAs with most disputes, your first step should be to try to resolve your complaint directly with the company providing the telephone services, including wireless communications. If you cannot resolve the complaint yourself, then consider filing a complaint with the proper regulatory agency.
If you believe your telephone bill is incorrect, contact your telephone company's customer service office immediately at the telephone number printed on the front of your bill.
If you are not satisfied with the company's response, you may file a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission. If necessary to keep service on during the investigation, you may deposit the billing amount in dispute with the commission.
California Public Utilities Commission Consumer Affairs Branch 505 Van Ness Avenue San Francisco, CA 94102 Phone: (800) 649-7570 (800) 649-7570
If you have complaints about telephone service from one state to another (interstate), international calls and wireless service, contact the Federal Communications Commission.
Federal Communications Commission Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau Consumer Complaints 445 12th Street SW Washington, D.C. 20554 Phone: (888) 225-5322 (888) 225-5322
If you believe your long-distance service was switched without your knowledge and consent ("slammed"), you should file a complaint with both the California Public Utilities Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
SAVE ON PHONE INTERNET AND TV
ReplyDeleteAnyone paying the bills in their household knows that talk is anything but cheap. Cell phones and land lines can cost a pretty penny. Add your bills for Internet service and cable TV, and your telecom costs can quickly go through the roof.
Here are eight tips to help you hang up on high prices:
BUNDLE UP
Bunch your services and save some green. For about $100 a month, you can get cable or satellite TV, local and long-distance telephone service, plus high-speed Internet service. This is often cheaper than it would cost for each service separately.
In addition to paying just one bill, you have just one company to call if you have a technical or billing issue. See Save a Bundle on Telecom Services to learn more.
RETHINK YOUR PHONE COMPANY
Save on your long-distance bill and chat via computer with free software from Skype.com. You won't pay a dime for any call to another Skype user. You can call non-users' landlines, too, for about $3 a month. Sure beats the $15 to $25 fee for a typical no-frills land line.
Or consider other low-cost Internet phone services such as Vonage. It comes with more perks such as voice-mail, caller ID and call waiting and costs $25 per month for free unlimited local and long-distance calls.
PRE-PAY YOUR CELL PHONE
The average wireless-phone user spends about $60 a month, including taxes and fees. If you talk for 200 or fewer minutes per month, you may save by switching to a prepaid plan charging 25 cents a minute or less.
Prepaid plans generally charge 10 cents to 60 cents a minute, and compatible phones cost as little as $20. Compare plans at www.myrateplan.com.
CUT THE CORD
If you have a good cell-phone plan that you use almost exclusively, get rid of the dead weight on your finances and drop your land line. You could reclaim $20 to $50 or more each month.
EVALUATE YOUR CABLE USE
Do you really need all those cable channels? Take a look at what you're paying for and what your family is actually using. Then trim accordingly. Dropping your premium channels, for example, is a good way to start saving.
You may even find you don't watch TV enough to justify the cost of your cable service. Consider dropping cable entirely and watching your favorite shows online or on DVD –- or reading a book.
HANG UP ON PHONE EXTRAS
Do you really need caller ID? Call waiting? Voice mail? Internet service on your cell phone?
Drop one or all of the extras and shave $5 to $50 off your bill each month.
GET A CALLING CARD
This is a great way to keep phone costs under control when you've got a roommate. That way, you're sure to only pay for the long-distance calls you personally make. No more billing disputes. Calling cards may also save you money over the long-distance plan offered by your phone company.
At Costco, for example, you can buy a Verizon phone card with 700 pre-paid minutes for $20. That's 2.9 cents per minute.
NEGOTIATE A LOWER RATE
With cutthroat competition among phone, cable and Internet providers, you can probably haggle your way to a better deal on your service.
Many of the best offers are for new customers, but that shouldn’t stop you from asking for the same deal, or at least one better than what you’re getting. You could always threaten to take your business elsewhere.