Understanding Your Local and Long Distance Phone Bill

A Guide to Understanding Phone Bill Charges

Uninformed long distance consumers has greatly added to the increase of slamming, cramming, and other forms of telecommunications fraud. To help consumers identify fraud, the FCC has asked telephone companies to make their bill statements easier for the customers to understand. Consumers need to easily understand what they are paying for and how much the bill is.

The following FCC rules, which wireline companies must follow, make sure that customers are given the necessary information needed to guard themselves from telecommunications fraud and to make educated decisions in today’s competitive telecommunications industry. These rules inform the consumer that a phone company’s bill statement must:

Be clearly organized;

State the company connected with each expense;

Highlight new companies and state the date the company change occurred;

Include all and non-misleading descriptions of charges;

State that charges left unpaid will not end in the cancellation of the customer’s basic local service; and

Provide a contact number (toll-free) for customers to call for filing a complaint or to receive information. If the customer does not receive a hardcopy (paper) telephone bill, but instead accesses that bill via e-mail or the Internet, the phone company may give the customer an e-mail address or Web site for looking into such charges.

The FCC has also discovered that phone companies should use universal labels on bills when referring to certain charges relating to federal regulatory action, such as local telephone number.

This information is provided by the Federal Communications Commission.

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