Several months ago UCAN Member Alan saw charges on his Verizon landline bill for 13 international phone calls he never made to Indonesia. Verizon billed these calls at $5.50 / minute for a total $320.

The phone number was 626xxxxxxx (last seven digits are x's for privacy).

It turns out that the calls had been made to a local number shown on the bill that was, in fact, Alan's Skype phone in Los Angeles metropolitan area code 626.

62 happens to be the country code for Indonesia, and Verizon mistakenly billed the local calls within the 626 area code as international.

Mistakes happen, so Alan contacted Verizon, explained that it was his Skype number on the bill, and disputed the charges. Verizon would not budge, eventually disconnecting Alan's bundled call phone and sending the account to collections.

Alan contacted the Fraud Squad for help and filed an online complaint with the CPUC. At first, Verizon maintained its hard core stance eventually offering a courtesy credit for the obvious error. Further investigation revealed that the supposed Indonesia number didn't even work.

Finally after UCAN sent a Consumer Legal Remedies Act (CLRA) demand letter (click link for sample letter), Verizon admitted its mistake and properly credited the account.

UCAN has found recently that many companies often take a hard core stance with their customers even when an obvious mistake has been made, often offering a partial credit or no credit at all. Customers that have automatic bill pay set up may not even realize they have been mischarged.

Be vigilant in these tight economic times and contact the Fraud Squad when you need help getting credit where credit is due.

Any other Skype users that have similar issues contact the Fraud Squad 

Is the new Customer Service Agreement millions of people received in the mail (measuring almost one yard in length), in effect?  NO, not yet. 

The CPUC posted the following: "AT&T:  The AT&T Residential Customer and Business agreements were scheduled to be effective on October 1, 2008.  These three service agreements are not in effect as they are predicated on CPUC approval of AT&T's advice letter filings requesting to detariff currently tariffed services.  These advice letters were suspended on October 17, 2008 for up to 120 days."  The new effective date of the service agreements is uncertain given the continued regulatory review and resolution of the filed public protest on the suspended detariffing advice letters. 

Verizon:  Verizon's service agreement is scheduled to be effective November 9, 2008. Public protests on the detariffing advice letters are due October 29th.  

The AT&T agreement tells customers they will either agree to the terms & conditions or find another carrier.  For some customers like UCAN callers from one section in Coronado, CA, it wouldn't be possible to choose another carrier since AT&T is the only one that services these folks.   It's unclear through what lenses the "powers that be" deregulated based on "market competition". 

Some of the other major flaws in the AT&T agreement included:

• The failure to provide crucial consumer information needed to make informed choices about services & prices;
• The failure to provide the required notices before initiating rate hikes;
• The failure to allow disputes on cramming without paying for unauthorized calls or services first;
• The failure to provide customers with the information needed on potential impacts of agreeing to bundled package/plans;
• The failure to provide the legally required notice of customers' rights;
• The failure to inform customers about caps on their basic service;
• The imposition of "binding arbitration" to prevent other legal remedies;
• The failure to include any legal violations and the failure to include any liability on the part of AT&T; and
• The increase in the company's ability to perform much more in-depth and often unnecessary credit checks.

Read the joint protest letter submitted by the consumer advocacy group TURN and the DRA.

If these Customer Service Agreements are permitted by the CPUC, millions of customers would need to hire attorneys to review, analyze and let consumers know what rights have been deleted. The joke of this entire mess is that most consumers ahve only one or two carrier choices today. The argument could be made that there is "market competition" in technology; not in carrier choices. One would think we've learned hard lessons with deregulation that lead to overe $850 billion of our taxpayer money going to clean up corporate greed.  Why would anyone expect the major telecom companies to not want to make a financial killing like Wall Street?  Over the past few years, consumers have felt powerless to fight injustices or alleged they were just too busy.

Now is the time to stand up and be counted by writing the Commissioners at the CA Public Utilties Commission, by writing your legislators, & writing the Governor
who appoints the Commissioners.  It's time to let everyone know how you feel.

The CPUC staff, commissioners and the CA legislators get paid VERY well to represent the people and it seems as though the city, state and federal levels have taken our money, spent it, mismanaged it, felt no obligation to protect us, enforce or even maintain any regulations.  As "sorry" as we are, the positive functions of conflict resolution can be heard from our voices.    

Big business really wants to shove the $700 billion bailout down America's throat. AT&T and others want to scare us into supporting the bailout.

Related articles

Businesses Pressure Congress on Bailout Plan from the Wall Street Journal

AT&T feeling credit crunch strain from cnn.com

Power Net Global (PNG) customers have reported to UCAN that their local AT&T phone bills show they've been switched to a new long distance carrier called Williams Communications.  Although PNG insisted customers received notice of this change, not one customer reported ever seeing any notice. However, the company did agree to credit the $3.31 charged on the local AT&T bill if customers could prove via fax that the $3.31 was billed

Background:  PNG told UCAN that as a reseller of phone service, it uses the phone lines of other companies.  Prior to switching its agreement to Williams Communications, it used Quest's lines.  PNG alleged it switched to Williams because Quest's prices were too high and it wanted to keep lower prices for customers.   In about 2002, PNG promised to provide great customer service to UCAN members, no added fees and at the time, billed in 6-second increments.  Times change and now PNG charges fees and rounds up to the nearest minute in lieu of its 6-second billing increments.

If you are a victim of a long distance "switch" charge in the amount of $3.31 including taxes, fees and surcharges, please take the following steps to request a credit.

1) Have your AT&T local bill showing the $3.31 charge for the switching fee ready to fax to PNG, if requested.

2) The number that was posted previously in this blog and that was given
to UCAN by PNG (1-877-441-6096) is no longer a working number.  UCAN was not notified of this change by PNG about number changes.  Fortunately, a UCAN member called to notify us about the non-working #.  Please call PNG at either 1-877-599-3095 (agent support) or 1-800-860-9495 (Customer Service) for a credit of $3.31 switching fee charge.  If no credit appears, call AT&T customer service and ask the company to "recourse" the switching fee back to PNG.   Most credits take one-two billing cycles. 

3)  Conduct an Internet search for long distance carriers to compare to PNG to make sure you are getting the best deal for your calling needs.  The best way to determine what's best for you is to take your existing long distance bill and go down the line with 2-3 other long distance companies.  If you decide to make a change, be sure to switch your local toll and long distance to the same company. 

4) Another option is to drop your land line phone and use a cell phone for everything.

5) There is also the option of dropping the long distance and purchasing prepaid calling cards from a major chain store so you can return them if the calling cards don't work. 

Whatever you decide, make sure you take the time to get the best deal based on your calling patterns and that the company you choose has a good reputation for its size.  Internet complaint sights might be a good place to start.