Another Major Phone Company Agrees to End Third-Party Billing on Consumer Phone Bills

Press Release

Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV issued the following statement today after AT&T announced it would soon stop placing misleading third-party charges on its customers' landline telephone bills. Verizon made a similar announcement last week.

"AT&T made the right decision to end cramming by August. Our Committee investigation revealed that telephone customers across the country have for years been paying for third-party services they didn't want, use or often need. 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."

Last year, the Commerce Committee completed a year-long investigation into unwanted third-party charges on landline telephones, also known as "cramming," which showed that third-party billing through landline telephone bills was a $2 billion a year industry. The report showed that, during the last 5 years, phone companies billed more than $10 billion in third-party charges and that a large percentage of these charges appeared to be wholly unauthorized and a result of cramming. The investigation demonstrated that third-party billing has largely failed as a payment method and its failure has cost everyday Americans, small businesses, charities, and local governments billions of dollars in bogus charges on their telephone bills.

Source