Post 1530

by billso on Thursday, 26 August 2004

USA: Cell phone cus­tomers are get­ting nickled-and-dimed by tele­coms, as T-Mobile, AT&T Wire­less and oth­ers charge cus­tomers directly for Fed­eral fees. Con­gress intended the tele­coms to pay the fees them­selves. Clever accoun­tants real­ized that by pass­ing the fees through to cus­tomers, the fees would count as rev­enue. This prac­tice makes a wire­less phone bill long and dif­fi­cult to read. “The explo­sion of line items has made it all but impos­si­ble for con­sumers to com­pare rates and shop around,” FCC Com­mis­sioner Michael J. Copps said in March. “You need a lawyer and an accoun­tant — prefer­ably both — to root out what you’re being charged for and why.” FCC docket num­ber 04–208 would require tele­coms to build the fees directly into their rates, so that wire­less con­sumers know exactly what they will be charged for their plans.

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