Calling Card Charges Still Unclear After Deregulation
Nothing I write about elicits quite so vitriolic a response as columns about telephone service.
Deregulation has often brought lower phone rates. But ceaseless rate changes, omissions of accurate information, a murky competitive situation, and mysterious price spikes have thoroughly roiled elements of the public.
These factors contributed to an outpouring of angry telephone calls and e-mails two weeks ago, when I recounted the experience of Tony Nino of Altadena, whose daughter ran up bills of $2,909 in two months on his account by making AT&T; calls with a non-AT&T; calling card.
Nino was finally told, and AT&T; spokesman Mark Siegel confirmed, that AT&T; would “re-rate” some of the calls, giving him a credit of $1,315. But, Siegel said, Nino still owed the remaining $1,594, and “we do expect payment.”
Now, however, those numbers seem uncertain. When Nino’s latest bill arrived, it contained no credits, and an AT&T; official has told him the company will offer him a settlement in writing. It has not yet arrived.
Of the more than 100 calls and e-mails I received, many reported similar disputes--bills arriving for huge amounts, calls costing $5.88 for one minute, or more than $1 a minute for longer ones.
Quite a few consumers apparently don’t know that if you have, say, a PacBell calling card, you must first dial a PacBell access number--(800) 522-2020--before you punch in your calling card.
If you dial (800) CALLATT, AT&T;’s access code, and dial in a PacBell calling card, you will be billed exorbitant “casual use” rates by AT&T.; Or if you dial zero, the number and a calling card number, this too may lead to high rates, with this or some other carrier.
A few readers who contacted me following the Nino column were not sympathetic with his situation, because they felt his daughter, who was having a romance, had simply used the telephone too much.
But a large majority protested that it is unfair of the phone companies to spring huge charges when they have not done a better job of informing consumers how much calling card calls can cost.
A very few suggested that California’s Public Utilities Commission or the Federal Communications Commission were to blame for allowing companies to charge such high rates.
But they are not to blame. Under deregulation, neither the PUC nor the FCC sets these rates.
Meanwhile, I looked into two other huge casual use bills:
* William Parkins, 84, of Woodland Hills, had a PacBell calling card for years before going into St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica on June 6 for surgery. He stayed in the hospital until Aug. 2.
While at St. John’s, he used a PacBell calling card to place calls through AT&T;, which was his regular long distance carrier. He ran up bills of $1,350 for such use, and while AT&T; eventually dropped $800 of these charges, he still had to pay $550.
It was hard on him. Parkins, a widower living alone, depleted many of his resources paying for nursing care when he returned home.
“I think AT&T; was at fault,” he told me. “Since they were my long distance carrier, I think they should have issued me a card I could use when I was outside my house. . . . I think the country did not benefit from the deregulation of the industry. It’s a . . . mess.”
* Foster Denker of San Marino went to Georgia for two months this past summer and used his PacBell calling card to call home.
“PacBell never told me I had to call the access number first,” he said. The bill exceeded $400.
Denker tried to get an explanation from AT&T.; “You get a recording of one option after another and you can’t get through,” he observed. “When you finally get someone, they’re no help at all.”
Finally, he had his lawyer, Sharon Keely, write a letter to AT&T; corporate headquarters.
In this Oct. 3 letter, Keely described her client as “flabbergasted” at the size of his bill.
“Please adjust it to comport with his expectations, in the interest of good customer service and in accordance with basic precepts of contract law,” she said. “Please respond directly to Mr. Denker within 15 business days of receipt of his letter to advise him of what action you intend to take.”
So far, there has been no response.
When I contacted Siegel, the AT&T; spokesman, he said it is “general company policy” to offer to re-rate the final month of the casual use calls if the customer accepts an AT&T; calling card.
As for Parkins’ assertion that AT&T; should have sent him a calling card to go with his long distance service from home, Siegel curtly rejected the idea.
“That would border on obtrusiveness,” he said. “I don’t think too many consumers would like it.”
He suggested the reactions I get to phone columns aren’t representative.
“Our experience has been that consumers are smart and savvy,” he said. “They are very astute at picking calling plans for themselves and sorting through the options. . . . They like a lot of choice.”
*
*
But my own feeling is that, with hundreds of different companies, it’s difficult for consumers to find out what is best without devoting a lot more time than most desire.
I asked PacBell spokesman Rodd Aubrey what PacBell has done, since it introduced its present access code in 1996, to inform customers how to avoid bills like those of Nino, Parkins and Denker.
“We’ve put directions on our calling cards, directions in front of phone books, and we’re planning a consumer advisory that will tell them how to use calling cards,” he said. “We’ll release that on the business wire. . . . Customers can always dial zero from any phone to find out what a call will cost.”
Whatever has been done, I suspect it hasn’t been enough. Confusion abounds, but I don’t have any brilliant ideas for reducing it.
*
Ken Reich can be contacted with your accounts of true consumer adventure at (213) 237-7060 or by e-mail at ken.reich@latimes.com
