On the recordJune 12, 2013
I rise to introduce the Fair Telephone Billing Act of 2013. This legislation would protect millions of American consumers and businesses from unauthorized charges on their wireline telephone bills. In 2011, the Senate Commerce Committee, which I chair, completed a year-long investigation into unauthorized third-party charges on telephone bills, a practice commonly referred to as ``cramming.'' The investigation confirmed that third-party billing through wireline telephone bills had likely cost American consumers and businesses billions of dollars in unauthorized charges. This legislation will put an end to cramming on wireline bills once and for all. Unauthorized third-party charges on telephone bills have plagued consumers for years. Cramming first emerged in the 1990s. Following the breakup of AT&T and the detariffing of ``billing and collection services'' by the Federal Communications Commission, telephone companies opened their billing and collection systems to third-party companies offering a variety of services, some of which were completely unrelated to telephone services. For the first time, telephone numbers worked like credit card numbers. Consumers could purchase services with their telephone numbers and the charges for these services would later appear on their telephone bills.…
