If you're not angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint -- America's
four national wireless providers that reportedly control 90 percent of
the market -- then here's some ridiculous news to raise your righteous
ire.
Perhaps you'd be interested to know about one of the most outrageous
cell phone scams? It's simple: Charge customers
for being forced to
listen to 15 seconds of unnecessary voicemail
instructions reminding
them how to leave a message after the beep.
According to New York Times
technology writer David Pogue, if Verizon customers leave voicemails
or
check their messages twice a day, the mammoth New Jersey-based telco
takes in around $620 million. In return, you
lose wasted hours of your
life and have to pay for it.
Speaking of Verizon, have you heard about the representative who refused
to shut down a dead man's service, even though his daughter produced
a
death certificate and needed the account closed so settlement of his
estate could proceed? Or the rep who tried to collect an overdue $308
bill from customer Al Burrows by threatening to, and I quote, "blow
your
muthafucking house up"? Do we need to even talk about AT&T's various
controversies, from censoring Pearl Jam to allegedly helping the
National Security Agency unlawfully monitor the American people's
communications?
The telco giants' latest disgrace, according to a recent Federal
Communications Commission report, has been given the egregious name
of
"bill shock" (PDF). Which is a misnomer, actually: it's certainly not
shocking to find, as the FCC explains, that "30 million Americans --
or
one in six mobile users -- have experienced...a sudden increase in
their
monthly bill that is not caused by a change in service plan." It's
even
less alarming to discover that "nearly half of cell phone users who
have
plans with early termination fees (ETFs) -- and almost
two-thirds of
home broadband users with ETFs --dont know the amount of the fees
theyre accountable for."
"In January, we sent letters to the major wireless providers asking
the
rationale for their ETFs," FCC spokesperson Rosemary Kimballl told
AlterNet. "While the business model of subsidizing phones by the ETFs
is
the carriers' choice, our position is that the ETF charge must be made
clear to the consumer when he is signing the contract. And this does
not
seem to be the case in many instances."
It is the kind of obscure legalese the industry is known for. Their
contracts are dense with clauses that no self-respecting human should
have to wade through, just to place a call or send a text. ETFs are
a
particularly blatant insult to wireless customers, who can't leave
an
underperforming carrier (and that's really all of them) without forking
over hundreds of hard-earned dollars. In fact, AT&T just nearly
doubled
its $175 early termination fee to $325 in May. That cold, capitalist
logic is built specifically for bottom lines and earnings reports,
not
for flawless customer service. ETFs are financial shackles to
mediocrity, and they're just the start.
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