Dear Attorney General,
My telephone bill includes some new charges that I don’t recognize. When I called my phone company, they said they were bills for services from other companies. They also told me I needed to contact the companies themselves to stop the billing. I didn’t order any of these things. What are they doing on my bill?
Dear Kansas consumer,
"Cramming" refers to unexplained charges on your phone bill for services you never ordered, authorized, received, or used. Sometimes a one-time charge for an unwanted service can be crammed onto your phone bill. Other times, consumers receive monthly recurring charges.
Cramming charges may include club memberships, text message updates, ringtones or service programs for voice mail, paging and calling cards. Most of these scams occur through the use of a 1-800 number. Others are initiated by contests or sweepstakes. They are all deceptive, and you should always dispute the charges.
Consumers should closely read their phone bill every month and look for businesses you do not recognize, calls you did not make, and charges for services you did not order. You should never return calls to unfamiliar telephone numbers and use caution when signing up for contests or promotional services. These scams are widely used to authorize unwanted telephone charges.
If you find any of these suspicious charges on your bill, contact your phone company as soon as possible. They should give you contact information for the company billing the charge. Once you identify the crammer, let them know you did not want their services and you expect them to issue a full credit and cancel the service.
To avoid these scams before they happen, contact your phone company to see if they offer a third party billing block for no charge. This service may not block all unauthorized forms of billing, so consumers should still continue to regularly monitor their bills.
If you believe a company has committed cramming, file a consumer complaint with my office at www.ksag.org or by calling 1-800-432-2310. As your Attorney General, I will work to keep Kansans safe by spreading information and promoting awareness of consumer issues.