Slams, Crams, and Scams

Watch your phone bill closely

Check your phone bill closely each month for new services or changes to your service that you didn't order. You would be amazed at what can be slipped into your phone bill. The practices of Slamming and Cramming are illegal but still practiced with impunity.  

• Slamming is the switching of your long distance service without your permission. 
• Cramming is the addition of services to your account without your permission.  

Be wary of drawings and contests and read the fine print on your contest entry form.  Some contest entry forms have fine print that says you are authorizing a change in your long distance service, often with several months of free service. By the time the first bill comes you will probably have forgotten all about the drawing.  

You may receive a call from a tele-marketer offering an incentive to switch your long distance service. If you take time to speak with them they may take something you say as permission to switch your service. If you give them a hard time or hang up on them they may switch your service out of spite. 

If you receive a check as an inducement to switch your long distance service read it closely before cashing it. Some of the terms are rather daunting, with high monthly rates, a minimum number of months on the contract, etc. 

• In the past those checks offered a good income if you were willing to play the game but that is no longer the case.  

You can avoid trouble by having the phone company place a PIC freeze on your account, meaning that they will not switch your long distance service without checking with you first. Just remember to un-freeze the account when you want to switch your service and to re-freeze it after you have confirmed that the change has taken effect. 

• The Primary Interexchange Carrier (PIC) is what the telephone company calls a long distance carrier. A PIC Freeze prevents anyone except you from authorizing a change to your long distance service.
• The reputable long distance carriers will have you verify that you are choosing their service. This is often done by a 3rd party company.  
• If you thought that slamming problems have abated, think again. Our phone company assures us that the problem has gotten worse.

Scams are most effective when there is an element of surprise, something that catches you off guard. If something seems too good to be true it probably is. If an odd request seems harmless, it may not be. Here are just a few tricks you may run into.

You receive a page or a message to call a number with an area code you don't recognize, i.e., 809. You may be told to call because you have won a prize or that a relative has died or is in the hospital. If you make the call you may find yourself with a horrendous charge on your phone bill, one that cannot be reversed by the phone company.

• You will have called an unregulated pay-per-call number in a foreign country. Most likely you will be put on hold or transferred repeatedly so you spend a lot of time waiting. US pay-per-call services, i.e., 900 numbers, are required to tell callers the service to be provided and the cost and they must allow time to disconnect at no cost. Overseas phone companies are not bound by these rules and US authorities have no jurisdiction over them.

A Web site offers free videos and free software to enhance your viewing experience. It also enhances your phone bill when it disconnects you from the Internet, mutes the speaker in your modem, and dials an unregulated overseas number.

• The "free" service may not disconnect the call until the computer is shut down, thus ensuring a wonderful revenue stream for the company. Since these videos are often pornography a good number of people are reluctant to complain and they just pay the bill.

You receive a call from someone claming to be a telephone company technician who asks you to dial a special code and hang up so they can test your line. This code gives them unlimited access to your company's long distance service.  

• The phone company will only call its customers to test the line in direct response to a customer's call. They will give you their name and the work order number you opened and tell you what problem they are troubleshooting.

There are many other scams out there. Below are just two, neither of which are related to telephone service, but they may help you to understand the gravity of the situation.  

A "Toner Phoner" calls and asks you questions about your copier or printer. If they can't extract that information they may call several people at your company until they finally learn the name of the purchasing agent.

• Your company may soon receive an unordered shipment of toner and other supplies. If you had provided the toner phone any information they will tell the purchasing agent that you authorized the purchase.

A salesman offers a free gift if you will just try their products. Sometimes they will offer the free gift just for providing information or responding to a survey. The gift may be quite valuable.

• This is a case of blackmail. The salesman's company will send you the gift. Some time later they will send merchandise, claiming you have authorized the shipment. When you protest they threaten to expose you for accepting a gift valued above what your company's ethics guidelines permit you to accept.

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