Consumers Can Fight Slamming and Cramming

National Consumers League launches new Web page to help consumers understand their phone bills and recognize phone frauds.

WASHINGTON, DC— The National Consumers League launched a new Web page today to help consumers understand all of the charges on their phone bills and recognize fraud. The two most common phone frauds, slamming, switching a consumer’s phone service without their consent, and cramming, billing consumers for optional services they never ordered, remain in NCL’s National Fraud Information Center’s top ten telemarketing frauds.

“Consumers can only fight these types of frauds if they know how to recognize them. To do that they have to understand their phone bills,” said Susan Grant, NCL vice president for public policy and director of the National Fraud Information Center. “NCL’s new page will help consumers learn the basics about how telephone billing works, which will help them choose their phone services wisely and avoid fraud.” 

With more competition for telephone service and new services being developed every day, consumers have more choices for their communications needs than ever before. But understanding their options – and phone bills – have become much harder. NCL’s Web page , available at www.nclnet.org/phonebill/index.html  provides descriptions of the different types of phone bill charges as well as the common scams consumers may find on their bills and how to avoid them. NCL developed this Web page with educational grants provided by Bell Atlantic and Ameritech.

The National Consumers League, founded in 1899, is America's pioneer consumer organization. Our mission is to identify, protect, represent, and advance the economic and social interests of consumers and workers. NCL is a private, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to representing consumers on issues of concern.

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