Sitrep - August 8th, 2015

Statement

There isn't a whole lot of news to report this week that you all don't already know about. I did want to make you aware of one thing that's been a growing issue here recently. As many of you know, a portion of your monthly cell phone bill goes toward the so-called "Universal Service Fund". That fund, among other things, provides cell phones to low-income families. When people talk about "Obamaphones", that's specifically what they are referring to.

To make a long story short, we've had a growing issue with the vendors who sell / provide these phones targeting veterans with a very misleading pitch. Outside one of our local VA outpatient clinics, a vendor sets up a booth. As veterans come in for appointments, they get roped into to signing up for what they think is a free phone for veterans. To be clear – there is no free phone for veterans program. In order for a veteran to qualify, he or she must be below the income threshold like everybody else.

So after these vets hand over their personal information and numbers, etc. they get a phone. Three months later, they get something in the mail saying they need to verify their income eligibility. The veteran tells the company, "but I make more than that" and the company says, "well you'll have to pay up in that case or we're going to disconnect your phone."

When this happens, either the veteran has gotten used to this new phone and gotten rid of an old one, in which case they've been duped into purchasing a new phone. Or more likely, the phone is simply disconnected and discarded. The company who is compensated by the Universal Service Fund is making money coming and going. At least that's our strong suspicion. Some company in the industry ran a very misleading campaign last year urging veterans (many of whose information they probably got at booths like the one I just described) to call and urge their representatives not to cut phone service for veterans. Our immediate reaction was, there is no such program. Low income veterans may well qualify for this program, but it's very misleading to suggest to people this is a veteran-specific thing.

Over the next week, I'm going to be digging into this quite a bit and I will be reaching out to some of my colleagues to try to get a number of us working on a solution. The bottom line is, if you know any local veterans, please give them a heads up that this is happening. It ends up being a situationwhere some slick talking sales person misleads them into turning over important personal information for what ends up being nothing.

In any case, I don't want to take up any more of your time this morning. I should have some more specifics to report on in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, if you have a minute, please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what's on your mind.

Thanks again.

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