 Madigan said wireless cramming is poised to become a major source of
consumer fraud, much like on landline phones before the practice was
banned in Illinois.A recent study points to the extent of the
problem, showing that 60 percent of third-party charges placed on
mobile phone bills of Vermont residents were "crammed" during a
two-month period in 2012, according to a survey conducted by the
University of Vermont and the Vermont attorney general's office.
Cramming happens when third-party vendors use consumers' phone
numbers much like a credit card. Vendors add charges to phone bills
for bogus products or services -- such as celebrity gossip items,
horoscopes and joke-of-the-day offerings -- that consumers and
businesses never requested and never used. But because the charges
are unauthorized, consumers rarely, if ever, detect the scam,
allowing the scammer to illegally profit for months at a time.
In 2012, Madigan drafted and negotiated a law that banned
unauthorized charges on landline phones, making Illinois only the
second state in the nation to ban the practice on wired phone lines.
But as more people use cellphones as their primary phones, scam
artists are now migrating to wireless billing schemes, spurring the
need for stronger consumer protections.
"Cramming charges on landline phone bills has been a problem for
a long time," Madigan said. "Now, cramming is spreading rapidly to
our cellphones, so we need protections in place to prevent scammers
from illegally profiting by putting these unapproved 'crammed'
charges on our monthly cell bills."
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The attorney general's office has filed 30 lawsuits against
crammers. Among the most glaring cases was a scam cited in Madigan's
2009 lawsuit against US Credit Find Inc., a Venice, Calif.-based
operation, which crammed a Springfield public library's dial-a-story
telephone line.
Over the last several years, Madigan has advocated for a
nationwide ban on phone bill cramming, testifying in July 2011
before the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee and filing comments with
the Federal Communications Commission. The filing this week with the
FTC is her latest effort to call for action to stop cramming on
wireless bills.
For more information on how to
protect against phone bill cramming or to report being scammed,
contact the attorney general's Consumer Fraud Hotlines:
[Text from file received from the office
of
Illinois Attorney General Lisa
Madigan]
 |
