I'm just Grrrring again.

Where's growly Fuzzy. I need her to Grrr too.

Check out phone bill fine print


First published: Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Verizon is also billing for other phone service providers, customers might be wise to examine their statements for bogus charges.

My recent Verizon bill included a $7.58 charge from Operator Assisted Network (OAN) for an alleged one-minute call.

However, the time of the call on the statement was an obscure hour when nobody at our home is awake. The bill states we called 101-515-8000, a number unknown to us.

The Verizon bill instructs that complaints should be filed with OAN. Fuming over the buck-passing, I read the riot act to Verizon reps, but they also deferred to OAN.

Clearly, Verizon makes money doing OAN billing, but its customers are forced to work out the nuisance problem with a firm I never knew existed. Nice, huh?

I also called the Public Service Commission, but staffers said they had no jurisdiction over such complaints.

Frustrated, I had to call the mystery OAN firm where a worker instantly said the charge would be deleted.

My grumbling apparently was part of a chorus. A subsequent Verizon bill received a few days ago acknowledges complaints have come from customers being billed for services they did not authorize.

Now, Verizon will immediately credit your account and it will take the matter up with the service provider be it OAN or whoever. Verizon also will offer the option of placing a block on all charges from third party providers not customer pre-selected.

While my $7.58 rip-off may be peanuts, Verizon reveals some of the unauthorized billing called "cramming" has included very costly voice mail and Internet services.

Verizon Now recommends "checking your phone bill carefully and report unauthorized charges directly to Verizon." Like I said at the start, read the fine print.