This entry is in reponse to the article posted on the New York Sun entitled Grilling a Responsible Commissioner by Harold Furchtgott-Roth.

One of most common questions we encounter is “what is this on my phone bill.” Specifically, the Universal Service Fund - what is it? The fund was created as part of the Act of 1996, primarily as a continuation of the pre-existing programs to provide federal support for high-cost incumbent rural telephone companies and low-income households. The program has muchroomed from $2 billion to more than $7 billion because the pre-existing programs have grown. This growth includes nearly $2.25 billion towards school and library funds and a large program for new-entrant telecommunication providers to encourage competition for lower rates.

Granted, some of this may be Greek to you but the bottom line, Commissioner Deborah Taylor-Tate has taken a stand to temporarily cap the Universal Service Fund fees on your phone bill. That’s virtually under heard of in the Government; that’s virtually unheard of in business. I nominate Ms. Tate to go after the oil companies to temporarily cap gas prices. Good job and thanks Ms. Tate for doing the right thing.

Let’s talk about money. Very often as a consultant, customers approach me who want to take the least expensive route to purchase a product or a service. Very often it’s a good idea, but often the savings you realize on the front end are going to come back to haunt you on the back end. Perfect example, I have a customer who was sold long distance (switched) at .039 per minute in a .06 world. Sounds great doesn’t it? When they hired Turner to review their bills we discovered they were, in fact, being charged .039 per minute for every one minute call but they were actually charged in three minute increments. So, their incredibly great rate of .039 was actually .117 in a .06 world. The hidden billing was so deep in the invoice it was difficult to find if you didn’t know what to look for. Additionally, their PICC fees that should have been maybe .32 per line kept increasing each month until it was $7.95 per line.

In their defense they were sold a bill of goods and trusted their vendor’s great pricing. Then when they checked their bill, it looked right. When we first audited their bill it ran about $12,000 a month. Once we fixed it, their bill was lowered to about $3,500 a month. So, the moral of the story,

‘SOMETIMES THE MONEY YOU SAVE IS NOT WORTH THE PAIN, AGGRAVATION AND MONEY IT COSTS YOU IN THE LONG RUN.’

Advise:

1. Don’t automatically believe an incredible rate. Make sure you have an out in your contract should you discover you are being over billed.

2. Always check their rate for all those extra fees and charges and ‘get it in writing.’ Find out if they are going to bill you extra for administration costs recovery or to recover their cost of doing business in any way! I struggle constantly with companies that are promised one rate by a sales person and then never see that wonderful rate on their bill.

3. Don’t be afraid to add (to the contract your own requirements. Remember, your strength is before they actually have your business not after. If they won’t allow it, ask them for a signed addendum by an authorized representative of the company. If they won’t give you that, there are a lot of good vendors out there that want your business, shop around.

4. Often they will show you in their contract that if you don’t like their service you can leave ‘if they don’t try to fix the problem.’ Note the wording, almost everyone will try to fix the problem. That doesn’t mean they actually will fix it or can fix it. But the word ‘try’ will keep you in that contract. Often there is a 100% penalty for early termination…so read it carefully!

5. Sometimes you’ll find out that you only have one vendor to choose from and shopping around is not an option and they won’t allow you to alter your contract, then advise them your going to record the conversation and record their promises with their name and some verifying information like a birth date.

When in doubt, have a professional look over your contract and make sure you aren’t digging yourself a pit to fall in later.

We wish to thank every one of you who have supported this site by registering to become a member, those who have posed questions, and those who have purchased our products ~ thank you.

When we first conceived the idea of this site, we received a lot of positive response. Since the airing of the Florida Cramming on Get Gephardt, KUTV, we have received criticism that our information is not free. As much as we appreciate the comments so that we can better serve our customers, we want to point out that you can get your questions answered for free. We discovered that many people do not know what a Forum is and therefore, people were confused where they could ask questions and get them answered for free. The Question~Answers (Forums) is where those free answers can be obtained.

Now please bare in mind, we are a for-profit business. Our parent company, Turner Telecommunications (Turner) has been creating savings and producing recoveries for businesses for nearly 15 years. Our products are much more comprehensive than what you’re going to find in the Forum. Our products document how residential consumers can do what Turner does for themselves but on a smaller scale. In November of 2006, when Mr. Gephardt aired Turner on his show assisting him in his investigation on fraudulent charges, we had a “free” five-page document for download that detailed how consumers can identify fraud, stop it, and get their money back. Although, we had thousands of hits on our website, the segment did not get Turner one customer, which we had hoped. For weeks after that segment, we helped hundreds of residential consumers for free with their phone bill. Since this last showing, on April 18, 2007, again, we have helped numerous residential consumers, for free, with their phone bill. Some people chose to complain about only finding for purchase information, which was fine because it helped us realize that they weren’t able to find the “Free” area easier.

So my apologies go out to every visitor who felt that our site was not prepared after the April Bill Gephardt airing. We take full responsibility and we have tried to accommodate all the requests we have received to make our site easier to navigate and accessible. Again, we appreciate the continued support and please feel free to continue submitting questions and comments.