Have you checked your phone bill lately?

This seemed like a good time to make tighter budgets for next year, given the effects of the economy and we were reviewing our phone bills for our landline in North Idaho and realized with some horror that there were “miscellaneous charges” for unauthorized voicemail services from two different companies on the bill totaling almost $25 per month.

I called the information number and reached an operator who offered a refund of three of the six billing cycles which totaled $104.65. The other company had been charging $8.23 for a total billing since June 2008, offered a refund of six “cycles” or $49.38. They claim we had authorized the charge “on the Web.” They would not explain exactly how, though. We have a functional message machine and we would never have knowingly authorized such a charge. What exactly is the Internet scam that those of us not entirely computer savvy should be aware of?

If someone had stolen $250 from me and offered to repay one third of it, should I be happy with that? Well, no. So I am taking this issue further, including spreading the word to others.

Judging from information on the Internet, this might be happening with all of the phone companies and I see from very recent posts, there are lawyers jumping in over the potential class actions.

It would be nice if the telephone companies did the right thing and acknowledged their mistake and offered redress since this scheme could make Madoff seem like Miss Muffett. But even as they agreed to cancel “third party billings” for our account, they said this would also prevent us from accepting collect calls. I pointed out the irony of requiring a verbal confirmation for one single call, while requiring no verbal confirmation on hundreds of dollars of charges. Later they re-instated the collect calls.

In my mind, the worst part of this violation was about trust. In my life, I remember the “de-regulation” of the telephone industry under the argument that it would make it more efficient, innovative and responsive. It seemed consistent with linking our bill to a direct withdrawal from our checking account for efficiency. Can we no longer assume that any corporation will act with regard to their customers’ well being? Where are the corporate leaders that can repair this social fabric? Do we actually need more laws? I give it the small chance that global warming is a natural inevitability, but I can’t believe that human to human or even corporate to human behavior has descended to dog eat dog.

JACKIE HENRION and DAN EARLE

Hope