FTC shuts down fraudulent phone charge scam
At the request of the Federal Trade Commission (full story), a federal judge has halted a massive fraudulent billing scheme that has collected more than $25 million in bogus collect call charges from hundreds of thousands of consumers.
The FTC charged three companies and their principals with deceptive and unfair billing practices for “cramming” – the unauthorized billing of charges on phone bills – since at least January 2004.
"Charging consumers for bogus collect calls is stealing," said Lydia Parnes, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection." The Federal Trade Commission will not tolerate crooks who cram unauthorized charges onto phone bills."
The FTC’s complaint alleges that, in many instances, the defendants initiated phony collect call charges, such as calls to telephone lines that were dedicated to computers and fax machines, and to phones where no one was present. In addition, some consumers' caller ID logs had no record of collect calls for which they were billed.
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