Verizon and AT&T have agreed to stop “cramming” consumers’ telephone bills with unauthorized third-party charges, Sen. Nelson Rockefeller announced Wednesday. The move comes after a Senate investigation revealed last year that consumers were hit with $10 billion in fraudulent charges due to the practice over the past five years.
A TODAY show/msnbc.com investigation in July revealed how extensive and frustrating cramming is, with maddening, mysterious $10 or $20 charges appearing every month on millions of Americans’ phone bills.
The investigation relied on a report commissioned by Rockefeller that found that three telecom firms – — Verizon, AT&T and CenturyLink/Quest — earned $650 million as their cut of cramming charges levied by third-parties since 2006.
“AT&T made the right decision to end cramming by August,” the West Virginia Democrat’s office said in a statement on Wednesday. “Something had to be done. And while the decisions of AT&T and Verizon are a step in the right direction, I still believe we need to pass a bill that bans this abusive practice once and for all.”
“AT&T has decided to discontinue most third-party billing on our customers’ landline accounts,” Michael Balmoris, an AT&T spokesman, said in a statement to msnbc.com. “We currently receive cramming complaints for only about one out of every thousand bills that contain third-party charges. However, due to continued concern over the possibility of unauthorized charges, we have decided to take this additional step and eliminate third-party billing for most types of services.”
Verizon spokesman Bill Kula also confirmed the change, saying in an email: “On March 19, Verizon’s wireline business began notifying its billing aggregators (or “clearinghouses”) and carriers that it is going to cease providing third-party billing services for so-called ‘miscellaneous’ or ‘enhanced’ services. All billing of those services will be phased out by the end of 2012. … Verizon wireline will continue to provide billing services for third party charges that generally relate to telecommunications or information services that use our network.”
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2 Responses
As far ass I can determine there is no Sen Nelson Rockafeller. He was a former governor of New York who died in 1979.
The Senator from West Virginia is JAY Rockefeller, Not NELSON Rockefeller who was the Governor of New York and Vice President