Thursday, June 15, 2023

Getting Slammed

Anyone remember that? No I don't mean doing to much tequila in your freshman dorm, I mean the scam practice of switching people's long distance companies without their approval.

Was a big thing in the 90s, after landline local and long distance services were severed and you could pick your long distance company.

Whatever the merits of that, there weren't adequate controls on approving a switch, so of course scammers saw an opportunity.

Happened to me once. Think it was just the equivalent of getting switched from Sprint to MCI, but in getting switched no deal options were added, so suddenly m 10 cent per minute calls (or whatever they were) ended up being $1.50/minute calls. They said they'd fix the charges, then called me at 6AM a week later to tell me they wouldn't.  I rarely yell but that morning  I yelled.

Anyway, *everything* seems a bit like that now - though at least then you could generally get a human on the phone to yell at - so any efforts to crackdown on various kinds of related nonsense is welcome. 

Junk fees aren't precisely the same, but in the general category of companies extracting unexpected fees with little recourse.