Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., asked four major...
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., asked four major carriers about their efforts to protect consumers from unauthorized third-party wireless charges known as “cramming,” in separate letters sent Wednesday (http://xrl.us/bnbou3). Rockefeller said he was concerned that wireless cramming “has…
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the potential to become a similar problem” to the “epidemic” of wireline cramming, which costs American consumers and businesses “billions of dollars.” Rockefeller said the positive steps that have been taken to curb wireline cramming will become “meaningless if cramming simply migrates” to wireless bills. Rockefeller noted that, of all cramming complaints received by the FCC, the percentage of wireless cramming complaints has nearly doubled, increasing from 16 percent 2008-2010 to 30 percent in 2011 alone. He said the “double opt-in” and opt-out processes for preventing wireless cramming are not working and consumers are complaining that cramming charges continue to appear on their wireless bills. Rockefeller asked Sprint Nextel, T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T to answer seven questions about the proliferation of wireless cramming and what the companies are doing to prevent it. An AT&T spokesperson told us that the company plans to fully cooperate and respond to the letter. “AT&T takes deceptive third-party billing practices such as cramming very seriously. AT&T does not benefit from cramming -- quite the opposite. Anything that harms our customers harms us and our relationship with them.” A spokeswoman from Verizon Wireless said the company looks forward to cooperating with the committee. Sprint and T-Mobile did not comment.