The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills

170 Pages·2004·2.64 MB·English

The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 2
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives
Of Phone Bills™
A novel based on research from:
“Phone Bill Independence Report”
Published by Teletruth,
New Networks Institute, and LTC Consulting.
April, 2004
Authors,
Bruce Kushnick & Valerie Simpson
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 3
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 4
Table of Contents
Topics Covered
A Letter from Bruce Kushnick, Chairman, Teletruth
Chapter 1 Phone Bills and Slush Funds?
Chapter 2 Who Cares About Phone Bills?
Chapter 3 The Legend of Aunt Ethel.
Chapter 4 Val Goes on a Blind Date.
Chapter 5 What the Masses Know About Their Phone Bills — Well, Nothing.
"The FCC Line Charge Is on My Bill?”
Chapter 6 How to Read Your Phone Bill — The Dirty, Little Secret Tricks of
Experts. Part One.
Chapter 7 An Interview with Verizon About Teletruth: Interview with a
Vampire?
Chapter 8 Weird Dreams of Phones.
Chapter 9 Dear Old Dad, The Former IRS Auditor.
Chapter 10 An Angry Customer Gets Revenge — Verizon Pathetic.
Chapter 11 How to Read Your Phone Bill — Dirty, Little Secret Tricks of
Experts. Part Two.
Chapter 12 The Former IRS Auditor Speaks.
Chapter 13 How Are Phone Rates Set?
Chapter 14 How Rats Are Set. It Isn't a Typo.
Chapter 15 Telecom Skunk Works 101.
Chapter 16 Opportunity New Jersey and Pennsylvania — Broadband Scams.
Chapter 17 The Dirty, Little Secrets of Packages.
Chapter 18 How Rats Are Set, Part Two.
Chapter 19 How to File A Complaint. Don’t Get Mad: Get It Resolved
Chapter 20 Packages and Passion.
Chapter 21 These Are a Few of the Dark Little Things.
Chapter 22 You Can’t Always Get What You Want.
Chapter 23 Disconnected? Bell Out of Order?
Chapter 24 Sometimes You Get What You Need.
Endnotes
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 5
Topics Covered
• Local Vs Long Distance Call
• AT&T was Broken Up 20 Years Ago.
• The Creation of the Baby Bells
• Baby Bell Incest
• Local Phone Service in 1980
• Local Phone Service Deregulation
• Telephone Rental Scam
• Phone Bill Account Summary
• Basic Local Services
• Unlisted Numbers
• Truth-in-Billing
• Surcharges and Taxes
• FCC Line Charge
• New Jersey Phone Bill – FCC Charge as Part of Basic Service.
• Double, Triple, Quadruple Taxation
• New York City “Surcharges”
• USF Applied to FCC Line Charge and Portability
• Spanish American War Tax
• Local Number Portability
• More About the Universal Service Fund
• E911
• Optional Services
• Inside Wire Maintenance
• A Non-Basic Charge From NJ Bills
• Voicemail
• Idiot Items
• New York Phone Bill with Touchtone Charge and Other Idiot Items
• Optional “Denial” and “Blocking” Services with $0.00 Charge.
• Local, Toll and Directory Calls
• 411 Directory Assistance Calls
• “411” Directory Assistance with Tax
• All Other Charges, Slamming and Cramming
• Pay Per Use
• New York City Phone Bill Increases
• How Rates Are Set
• Public Utility Commissions
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 6
• The FCC
• Congress and Telecommunications
• The Courts and Telecommunications
• Rate-of-Return
• Plead Poverty Regulation
• Alternate Regulations: Price Caps and Incentive Regulation
• Promise Them Anything Technological Future
• Phase Two: Calling Features and ISDN
• Astroturf Groups
• Phase Three: The Information Superhighway Broadband Scams
• Yellow Pages Are Extremely Profitable.
• Phase Four: Competition Calamity
• The Telecom Act of 1996
• Open the Networks: Bells Allowed Into Long Distance
• The Triennial Review: Harm to Internet Providers and Competitors
• Which Regulators Controls Which Phone Charges
• VOIP Fight
• How to File a Complaint
• How to Select a Package
• Additional Taxes on the Verizon Freedom Package
• The Story of Vaporware
Phone Bill Exhibits:
NOTE: Because of the size of the e-book, we decided to create a separate file for
the phone bill exhibits. They can be downloaded at:
http://www.teletruth.org/docs/DirtysecretsPhoneBillExhibits1.pdf
Phone Bill Exhibit 1 Phone Bill Account Summary
Phone Bill Exhibit 2 NJ Phone Bill – FCC Charge as Part of Basic Service.
Phone Bill Exhibit 3 Taxes and Surcharges
Phone Bill Exhibit 4 Optional Services
Phone Bill Exhibit 5 A Non-Basic Charge From NJ Bills
Phone Bill Exhibit 6 NY Phone Bill with Touchtone Charge and Other Idiot Items
Phone Bill Exhibit 7 Optional “Denial” and “Blocking” with $0.00 Charge
Phone Bill Exhibit 8 Local Calls: The 9-Cent Scam
Phone Bill Exhibit 9 Toll Calls from New Jersey.
Phone Bill Exhibit 10 “411” Directory Assistance with Tax
Phone Bill Exhibit 11 976 Calling
Phone Bill Exhibit 12 Verizon Freedom Package, New York,
Phone Bill Exhibit 13 Additional Taxes on the Verizon Freedom Package
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 7
A Letter from Bruce Kushnick, Chairman, Teletruth, Author.
The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction.
You can’t read your phone bill, can you? This is nothing to be ashamed about
since virtually no one can read or understand all those dirty little secret charges.
Were they put on your bill to nickel and dime you to death as you may suspect?
This is a fictional story of Valerie Simpson, a consumer reporter who is about to
investigate why all those little charges exist, how they got on the local phone bill
and the deep dark secrets the phone company and even the regulators and
politicians don’t want you to know about.
Our position: Every tax and surcharge on the phone bill should be reduced or
removed immediately and no new charges should be added to any new service
until there is a full investigation of the total amount customers pay each month.
By the end of this book you will understand:
• How to read your local phone bill and all of the charges.
• What to look for when you purchase a “package”.
• How to determine if you’ve been slammed, crammed or double-billed.
• Why every tax and surcharge is suspect and should be investigated.
• How to file a complaint when you get annoyed.
• The role of the regulators in this mess.
• The “Dirty, Little Secrets” including the skunk-work consumer groups that are
paid to harm you, the failed audits and the broadband scams that cost you
hundreds of dollars and harmed America’s “Digital Future”.
This book is also based on actual data, articles, company financial statements
and is directly related to the Teletruth “Phone Bill Independence Report”, the non-
fiction version of this book. That report is based on a survey conducted over the
last two years of Verizon phone bills for New York and New Jersey. Most of the
phone bills in America have the same issues. While this is a novel, we have
footnoted many passages that were taken directly from the actual sources in order
to avoid legal repercussions.
We write this with the hope of not only making this information accessible to the
average phone customer who pays a phone bill, but also to get every customer to
understand what has happened to the local phone bill. We believe that the
charges are a national disgrace that needs to be exposed and confronted. Note:
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 8
this book is about local phone bills. Other books in the “Dirty, Little Secret Lives
of” series cover wireless, long distance, and broadband.
We also need to point out that this book (and its companion report) comes at a
time when new services, such as Voice-Over-the-Internet (VOIP), which allows a
caller to bypass the local phone companies networks and only use the Internet for
a phone call, and even the Internet itself are under siege with cries of adding new
taxes and surcharges. Meanwhile, almost every state phone monopoly is
proposing increases to local phone service charges or increases to the costs to
competitors to access a customer’s phoneline.
Since no regulator has ever examined the total phone charges on your phone bill
— not the FCC, Congress or even the state commissions, and since you, the
customer will be paying for any new increases, corporate greed has already cost
you hundreds of dollars. Enough is enough. Read the book and let’s fix the
current problems and block any new charges added to your bill by the whims of
the phone companies, supported by their various politicians and regulators.
Also, though we have made every effort to keep the data in our analysis current,
we recognize that even as you read this report, phone bills will have changed.
For example, there have been increases in the FCC Line Charge, the fluctuating
Universal Service Fund price as well as and price increases on numerous items,
which also impacts the taxes and surcharges on those items. However, this does
not affect our primary concerns or the accuracy of the story being told.
Teletruth was set up specifically to fix the problems with phone bills and telephone
charges and we appreciate you buying this book. I wish to thank the various
persons who helped to develop this project: Tom, Marcus, Larry, the Simpson
family, Valerie, Jane, Eric, Joe, Dan, Jean, Bob, Jim, Kate, Jane, Kaarli, Chris,
Sue, Arnold, & the gang at Teletruth. Cover design by Vicki Blake.
NOTE: Because of the size of the e-book, we decided to create a separate file for
the phone bill exhibits. They can be downloaded at:
http://www.teletruth.org/docs/DirtysecretsPhoneBillExhibits1.pdf
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 9
Chapter 1 Phone Bills and Slush Funds?
Valerie walks into the room with a sense of dread. Sitting down at the dining room
table she sorts through the pile of letters and envelopes — mostly bills. She can
feel a knot forming in her stomach. Her long blonde hair ever so slightly
swooshes as she moves it to her left shoulder.
Trying to remain calm, she can hear herself say "merde". She picks up a white
envelope with the word "Verizon" on the outside, and tears open the bill, almost
ripping the pages. Her head shakes in disbelief as she looks at all the little
charges on the bill — 23 cents here, 57 cents there.
Val reaches for the sleek pair of glasses, her eyes needing more focus for reading
all the details. Her anger grows. This can't be right. What the hell is this charge
for? ‘Surcharges’ with nothing else?
Shaking her head and with the thought, This goes no further, she decides she will
take the assignment. Valerie Simpson is a reporter for a major newspaper in a
large metropolis, The New York Daily Gazette. Her editor had asked her a simple
question:
"Why is there an FCC Line Charge on this bill?"
She had no idea. She never usually read anything more than the amount due.
Valerie knew all those little charges couldn’t be right. She knew that regardless of
that old conception, blondes can't think, she was smart. She never looked at the
phone bill details, remembering how when she tried once it only led to a
headache. Numbers danced in her mind, meaningless items, all designed to
nickel and dime the customer to death.
"I have no idea boss. Doesn't it go to fund the FCC?"
"That's what I thought" the gruff, yet very bright bulldog of a man responded.
"How about this thing called ‘Surcharges’? You ever notice that before?"
She took the phone bill from his hand, put on her glasses and stared at the items.
She had no idea what they meant and it showed on Valerie's confused face.
He continued, taking the half-chewed, unlit cigar out of his mouth and rubbing his
bald, shiny head. "I just got this report from a group called 'Teletruth', based in
New York. They wrote that the FCC Line Charge and all of these other charges
The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives Of Phone Bills 10
shouldn't be on the phone bill. That a lot of them are just revenues back to the
local monopolies, like Verizon."
"Doesn't surprise me. Who can read their phone bills? I remember seeing a story
on some news show..." she thought but couldn't remember the name, "…where
they had some rocket scientists on the air who couldn't figure the charges out."
"Exactly. But these guys from Teletruth, phone bill experts, seem to believe it is
not only unreadable, but also covering up quite a few scandals. Because the bill
is so complex, they just get covered over."
He handed her a big printed report. "I want you to read this. Then call Teletruth
and interview this Tom Allibone and Bruce Kushnick."
The report was titled "The Dirty, Little, Secret Lives of Phone Bills".
"Great title." She laughed.
"And then if this checks out, I want you to go on this hard. This story has never
been told. We're talking about slush funds, fraud, deceit, double, triple, and
quadruple taxation, misrepresentation — not to mention that these guys show that
even the numbers on the bills don't add up. If this is true, this story is big." He
pauses and glances at the “Executive Summary” and summarizes.
"It looks like customers are being overcharged hundreds of dollars done through
unreadable phone bills. It says that the profits from the FCC Line Charge were
never checked — even though the charge keeps increasing — and that the
Universal Service Fund is a slush fund that is constantly growing. Apparently
there's even a charge on the phone bill to fund the ‘Spanish American War’…that
was in 1898 for Pete’s sake!" He is waiving his big arms for emphasis. ”There are
no regulators examining the entire bill for these profits!”
"You’ve got to be kidding me?" She shakes her head in disbelief. "Harold, I
haven't seen you this animated since you had to leave the office because of the
blackout and we couldn't get the paper out."
"If this stuff is true, I'm really pissed, and so should every other American
consumer who thinks these companies can be trusted to 'do the right thing'. I
want you to do it as a mystery writer looking to uncovering more and more fraud
and deceit. Go through each charge and uncover the truth about this. Let's Tell-
The-Truth, whatever it may be."