The Federal Trade Commission has asked people to regularly check their phone bills to check whether or not phone carriers have levied cramming charges or unauthorized charges.
People should check for cramming charges often listed in a bill as service charge, service fee, membership, other fees, usage fee or voice mail. If they find addition of any such suspicious charges then they should clarify with the phone carriers.
Lately, the FTA has filed a lawsuit against T-Mobile USA of profiting from cramming. Regulators were of the view that for past many years, T-mobile has ignored 'telltale signs of fraud' in unauthorized charges made to consumers' bills and have collected hundreds of millions of dollars during this period.
On the other hand, T-mobile said the F. T. C.'s claims were unfounded and sensationalized. It has been seen that the practice of cramming has been seen on bills for a long time now. But it is quite recent that these costs have started to appear on bills for mobile phone usage.
In 2011, a Senate committee concluded in its investigation that the cramming costs Americans $2 billion a year. Generally, cramming takes place when a user is browsing the web on his smartphone and comes across an advertisement and unintentionally agrees to something.
Consumer protection measures are present, but then also there are some companies that manage to add extra charges on unwitting consumers. Jessica L. Rich, Director of the F. T. C.'s consumer protection bureau, said there were a number of complaints about the charges.
T-Mobile's chief executive, John J. Legere, said that the company has taken steps to protect customers from unwanted charges. "T-Mobile has in the past and will continue to keep our pledge to bill customers only for what they want and what they have purchased for as long as I am C. E. O. of this company".
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