The General Accounting Office yesterday reported sharp increases in the number of consumer complaints about telephone companies cramming their bills with unordered products and services and slamming them with unauthorized switches in service.
The report seemed to suggest that there could be sharper increases in the number of cramming and slamming complaints this year resulting from a federal appellate court’s order prohibiting the government from enforcing an October 1998 law banning both practices which was supported by the direct marketing and telemarketing industries.
Enforcement of the law was stayed by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia in May to give the Federal Communications Commission more time to consider an industry plan address both problems. So far the FCC has not acted on that plan. Meantime the FTC reportedly is developing tough new rules relating to the marketing of telephonic services.
According to the GAO the number of complaints about cramming rose to just under 20,000 last year, up from nearly 800 in 1996, to become the second most complaint filed with the Federal Trade Commission and the fourth to be filed with the FCC.
Classifying slamming as a “significant problem,” the GAO said between 1996 and 1998 consumer complaints to state authorities rose 91% to 39.668 from 20,741, and the number of complaints to federal authorities rose 57% to 20,154 from 12,795.
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