Bills need more than a glance
Woman's scrutiny reveals unauthorized phone charge
By JOSEPH M. DELEON News-Post Staff
jdeleon @ fredericknewspost . com
FREDERICK — Linda Howard, 58, noticed something odd when she opened her phone bill last month. It was too much. She's used to paying about $52 each month, but the bill showed $59. “I don't always look at my bill, but this time I did,” the former school teacher and retired computer programmer said.
A directory assistance call May 3 at 12:05 p.m. to Nevada for $5.52 billed by Operator Assistance Network stood out.
“I knew I didn't make that call, so I called Verizon,” she said.
A representative from Verizon, her phone carrier, pointed out the charge was really $7.53. Operator Assistance Network (OAN) had charged $2.01 tax on the call. The Verizon representative told Ms. Howard to take the matter up with OAN, the company that handles all of Verizon's directory assistance calls.
Ms. Howard started by searching for OAN on the Internet.
“I discovered that OAN does this quite often. This has been going on for years, and nothing is being done about it,” she said.
Strange charges on a phone bill can be the result of several things, including computer errors and a process called cramming, which is the unauthorized addition of services or features to a telephone bill.
During the course of back and forth calling and Internet research, Ms. Howard discovered OAN is a billing clearinghouse, and that a company named Tel-Seven, LLC, issued the charge.
Technical support specialist Mike Walsh, from CallingTen, also known as TelSeven, explained how the system works.
“There are about five major telephone companies, and if you're not one of them, you use a third party biller like OAN for directory assistance,” he said.
Companies like TelSeven rely on the third party billers for client information when directory assistance calls are routed their way, he said. Sometimes mix-ups happen.
Ms. Howard also learned Verizon and OAN could tell by looking at their records she did not place that call.
“It just boggles the mind that they can charge a bogus call,” she said.
She insisted Verizon block miscellaneous charges from her bill. Verizon offered to hold the charge from her bill, but Ms. Howard had paid it with an automatic bank draft.
OAN offered to credit her account, but it would take several months for the credit to appear on her Verizon bill.
“I'm a programmer, so I know how quickly you can take care of that,” she said.
Ms. Howard never considered simply paying the bill to avoid the hassle of contesting it.
“It's just wrong, and if I let it go and everyone lets it go, where does it end?” she said. “This could happen every month.”
Ms. Howard filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Communications Commission. She plans to take the matter up with the attorney general's office and her state representatives.
“I think of my 81-year-old mother who would just pay it,” she said. “What about people who don't have a computer to research this?”
She doesn't know how TelSeven got her phone number, but she suspects the Internet had something to do with it.
“I'm not a privacy freak,” she said “I use the Internet as my personal research library, too.”
Mr. Walsh guessed a bad connection was to blame.
“Rarely does this happen, but the information can be garbled, or truncated and distorted,” he said. “So, instead of billing someone with a phone number of 123-4567 we might see that it's 123-4568.”
He called Ms. Howard last week to explain the situation and said he wanted to send her a check.
Still suspicious of a scam, she did not share her address. As the conversation continued, Ms. Howard began to change her mind, but still preferred a credit to a check.
Mr. Walsh explained a credit would take months because after TelSeven issues the credit, it has to go through OAN and Verizon billing cycles.
Mr. Walsh also said he would follow up to be sure the credit appeared on Ms. Howard's July bill.
“I was expecting this to be some pie-in-the-sky scoundrel, but to get this nice guy on the phone sort of threw my theory off,” she said.
Mr. Walsh said he still has not determined if bad data transmission caused the charge.
“There always seems to be something fishy going on when you're dealing with computers,” he joked.