Back in March, I diaried about some weird charges on my AT&T bill. In the process I discovered the crusty world of "cramming" - the practice of using a 3rd-party biller to passthrough fraudulent charges onto your phone bill. Just like last time, I see a final page at the end of my bill that contains an itemized list of charges processed by "OAN Services, Inc", with this month's fraudulent charge being for the "service" of "Premium Voice Mail, Inc 1X Setup Fee" for $15.74. I have never ever heard of either company and certainly did not order any voice mail services, as I have a perfectly good answering machine that costs nothing per month.
Once again, I will have to spend 2 or more hours on the phone with these creepy people getting them to remove these charges and threatening to report them to the FTC and the CPUC. These kinds of companies are notorious for getting away with theft! Not only do I have the privilege of being nickled, dimed & spied on by AT&T, they also assist criminals to pickpocket me! I urge you all to check your phone bills, but in addition, we need to make sure the FTC is reformed and gets some teeth during the next administration.