4 Year Slam!

While auditing a phone bill recently for a new client, I discovered they had been slammed by an LD carrier (slamming is when your LD carrier is changed without your permission). As is typical, this carrier was charging very high rates. Normally I could get a refund for the client, but in researching the situation I discovered the slam had occurred four years ago. Four YEARS. That’s a long time to be overcharged for something without noticing. Since the FCC (Title 47, Sectn. 64) only requires carriers to retain authorization records for 2 years, the client could not get a refund.

In my client’s defense, it was well buried in the bill, but the point is this: Don’t get ripped off. You need to read your phone bills. Scrutinize every line on every page. If you see something you don’t understand, call the carrier and ask. Don’t stop asking until you are confident that you know what everything is and that you are paying what you should for it.

An easy way to validate a bill each month is to simply identify what the total monthly charge should be each month. Take a bill for any month you know to be correct. Subtract from the Total Current Charges any usage-based charges (like LD) and all Taxes and Surcharges. This is the portion of your bill that should be fixed month to month. Do this calculation every month to ensure the fixed portion doesn’t change. Thoroughly validating usage can be involved, but you can at least validate the rates being charged. Validate Taxes and Surcharges by ensuring they remain a consistent percentage of fixed plus usage charges.