Some common themes that were found in the official telecommunications audit report were that phone line inventories were insufficient, the organization lacked formal control over approval of telecom invoices each month due to staff reductions and lack of efficient telecom management.   According to their Comptroller, George Maragos, “”There must be greater oversight and control of the Verizon telephone billing.  The I.T. Department will need to double its efforts to bring telephone service under control and save millions for the taxpayer.”

According to the telecom audit report, some of the individual departments were utilizing phone lines as follows:

The Planning Department with 136 lines for 37 employees;

The Department of Social Services with 1,558 lines for 968 employees;

The Treasurer’s Office with 75 lines for 38 employees.

The County of Nassau should be applauded for commissioning the audit and putting a stop to wasteful spending and attempting to get a handle on it.  The $1.2 million in savings would be a great way to invest in better controls for the organization.

One of the greatest areas of cost savings for telecom audit company clients is the phone line inventory, which often results in the largest payback for the project.  I.T. managers are often shocked to find that they’ve been paying for unused phone lines for years.

BottaBoom Consulting LLC has been in the telecommunication auditing business since 2000, helping hundreds of companies with their telecommunications cost savings.   If you would like a telecom audit for your organization, contact us here: Telecom Audit Contact

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, says a law protecting phone customers from unauthorized charges is needed.

Washington (CNN) — A key Senate chairman says Congress needs to pass legislation to protect customers from unauthorized third-party charges on their phone bills because the telephone industry has failed to prevent the practice.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, said a one-year study by the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee shows about $2 billion a year in “mystery fees” show up on the landline phone bills of Americans, a problem known as cramming.

In a Wednesday hearing, Rockefeller asked an industry representative why major companies like AT&T haven’t stopped unauthorized third-party charges from going onto their customers’ phone bills.

“It’s illegal, it’s wrong, it’s scamming,” Rockefeller said. “Why haven’t you cleaned up your act?”

“The industry has taken significant steps,” replied Walter McCormick, president and CEO of the U.S. Telecom Association. “Even the report that you issued today indicates that there has been improvement, but it remains a very, very significant, very pervasive problem.”

Phone companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Qwest do not have a process to determine if the charges were authorized by their customers.

The third-party billing system was a result of the AT&T divestiture when the FCC required companies to bill and collect for companies that provided long-distance or specialized services, McCormick said. It’s no longer legally required, but many people like the single invoice system, he said.

The Commerce Committee’s report says phone companies receive a small fee — often just a dollar or two — for allowing charges from third-party vendors to appear on their bills. But due to the large number of customers the charges eventually add up.

AT&T, Verizon and Qwest made $650 million during the past five years, according to the report.

The state of Illinois has brought a number of lawsuits to fight cramming. Attorney General Lisa Madigan told the panel people are unaware their phone numbers can be charged almost like a credit card and her investigations indicate customers are not even getting services in return.

“My office has yet to see a legitimate third-party charge on a bill,” said Madigan, who added most customers don’t detect the charges on their bills.

When third-party vendors are contacted they claim the charges were authorized by customers and they often say they have audio recordings of the customer giving the OK, Madigan said.

However, when her office obtained audio recordings, the voices turned out not to belong to the consumers who were billed, she said. She called for federal and state laws banning the billing practice.

A Georgia woman who handles accounts for 32 quick-service restaurants told the committee about her personal experience involving cramming.

Susan Eppley said she found noticeable differences in the AT&T bills for the various restaurants and that she called AT&T. According to Eppley, an AT&T representative explained the charges were from third-party vendors and that “customers were responsible for blocking such third-party charges.”

Eppley said she called the third-party company and was told Eppley’s company had OK’d the charges and there was an audio recording to back that up. Eppley asked to hear it but the company never provided the audio recording.

Ultimately, the company refunded all the money it had charged the restaurants.

Eppley said she spent about 15 hours resolving the issues and also setting up blocks on accounts to prevent future cramming. She said she was particularly upset the bonuses of restaurant employees could be adversely affected if their stores did not meet their financial targets.

Rockefeller praised Eppley, calling her a bulldog for her determined efforts.

David Spofford, founder of a communications expense management company in Virginia called Xigo, also testified before the committee.

A review of three years’ worth of bills for about 200 clients showed 40,000 instances of cramming, Spofford said.

The average charge was $18 a month, he said. Many businesses would not expend the manpower necessary to find the unauthorized charges and stop them, he said.

His company has identified several major third-party billing consolidators, Spofford said, but they bill under about 600 names, which he theorized was a method to avoid detection.

According to Spofford, the descriptions for the services include voicemail, directory services and web hosting. He said in 99% of the cases the services had not been authorized and the customers were not receiving the services.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, expressed shock companies were able to bill to a phone number without proving they have authorization from the account holder.

McCaskill said phone companies should follow the example of credit card companies and add identifying PIN numbers to all customer accounts.

McCormick, the industry representative, said he would discuss the PIN idea with members of his association.

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All businesses should get a telco audit on their services to ensure that cramming and unauthorized third party billing does not occur.  In most cases, companies can save thousands of dollars on their telco services with a telecom cost audit.  The audit usually costs nothing out of pocket as fees are paid only from savings actually realized.  To talk with a telecommunications consultant about a telco audit, contact the telecom audit pros at http://www.bottaboom.com/contact-us/ or call 1-888-487-5326.  You may be surprised at how much telecom cost savings can be found because of fraudulent phone charges and telecommunication errors.

Because these enforcement actions suggest disturbing patterns of deceptive activity, the Commission today also released an Enforcement Advisory on cramming, emphasizing that all charges placed on phone bills must be authorized by the customer, and warning that the Commission will take aggressive enforcement action in this area. In part, this Advisory states that the FCC found the violations to be particularly egregious because of the number of consumers affected, and because the companies either knew or reasonably should have known that the consumers did not request, authorize, or use the services, based on the numerous consumer inquiries and complaints they received. Some of the companies were apparently billing thousands of consumers, the vast majority of whom had never heard of the companies, were unfamiliar with the services they offered, and never used the services for which they were billed. In addition, carriers should be mindful of the Commission’s Truth-in-Billing Rules, which require that the billing carrier use clear, non-misleading, plain language in describing services for which a consumer is charged. The descriptions of charges must be specific enough so that customers can assess whether they were billed correctly for services they requested and received. The carrier also must identify the service provider associated with each charge and must display on the bill a toll-free number that a consumer can call to ask about or dispute any charge on the bill.

News and other information about the FCC is available at www.fcc.gov

The best way to ensure that crammers have not invaded your business telephone bill is to commission a business telecommunications audit.  Contact Bottaboom for a telecommunication cost savings analysis at 1-888-487-5327.  Or by sending an email to telecommunication audit.

Maybe your story is the same as mine, over the years, my XP machine slowed down considerably. Was it old age?  I think not.  I tried XP revival tips from “experts” on the web to try to get that snappy PC performance back but nothing worked.  Software that was supposed to “rev up” my machine, double its speed did not work any better than basic functions I already knew about such as clean disk and disk defrag.

Finally, last week, an associate of mine (Hal) who manages I.T. services for a large college client, serviced my work XP PC after I complained about slow XP speed and response.  Hal was actually able to produce noticeably better results by using what he described as a few simple tweaks to Windows XP.

I asked Hal to share his secrets with me so I could work the same magic on my home XP PC’s!  He agreed. I went home, implemented his tips and now my XP PC’s are running much better.  I hope that you too will notice better Windows XP performance once you implement Hals’ fixes.

These are the XP tuneup secrets I took from Hal (in easy laymens’ terms) as follows:

The first (and easiest) tuneup item in Windows XP was is to go to control panel and click on the Java applet icon in the menu.  Go to temporary Internet files, click on “settings,” then click on delete files, make sure to check off applications and applets, then click “OK.”  This will clean out all the junk collecting in your “Java tray” that has been collecting junk for years.  I don’t know what “Java tray” actually means but is sure sounds good! Most importantly, this fix seems to work.

The easiest and  next tuneup fix for speedier Windows XP takes us to the Internet explorer icon in control panel.  Go to the “general” tab, click on “delete browsing history.”  By default, according to Hal, all options are not selected by windows default except for “history.” Make sure that the first option, “preserve favorites website data” is not selected because it often is set up by windows and should not be. I could not find this on my XP machines, however, many XP machines have it.   Again, this selection box may be checked off, and if it is, uncheck it.  Then go on to hit the delete files button.  You should notice some performance improvement, particularly when you surf the web.

The final tuneup fix is to go to the run prompt from your start menu on Windows XP.  Type in chkdsk /F and hit enter. You’ll be prompted for a volume check on your next start up.  Select Y for yes and hit enter.  Your first start up thereafter may take  a few minutes while the application checks your volume.

In most cases your computer will benefit from these fixes.

Other causes of slow XP machines are of course malware and viruses.  I also recommend downloading AVG free anti-virus software and malwarebytes anti-malware software and spybot.  All are absolutely free, simply google them and download from the manufacturer or from CNET.  These free tools should be run weekly at a minimum and updated each week so that you can combat all of the new viruses coming out every day. Also, Malwarebytes and Spybot can be run simultaneously, especially now that you’ve cleaned up your XP machine and can actually run two applications simultaneously!  In most cases, you’ll be surprised what these preventative measures can likely do for your machine and how much malicious stuff you have on your machines just from innocently surfing the web.

Good luck and enjoy your faster Windows XP machine, I sure am! Please let us know how it went by using the comments section after you are done.

The Los Angeles city cell phone bill audit was conducted internally. What would the results have been had the audit been conducted by an independent professional telecom auditor?

The LA city controller comes up with some common sense recommendations that professional telecom auditors have known for years. Changes promotions often, consider giving employees a stipend to use their personal cell phones for business, limit features, and turn off unused cell phones and wireless devices when employees leave the company or government agency.

Isn’t it about time that you had a professional telecom audit or a cell phone bill audit for your company? Contact the telecommunications audit professionals at 1-888-487-5326.  Or click here: telecom audit pros.

Democratic Press Office – (202) 224-8374

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Chairman John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV today announced that the Senate Commerce Committee is conducting an investigation into “cramming,” a deceptive practice that involves placing unauthorized “mystery charges” on telephone bills.

In June, Chairman Rockefeller sent letters to three telephone companies—AT&T, Qwest, and Verizon—and requested information from them to better understand their awareness of the “cramming” problem and the steps they have taken to address it. As part of the investigation, Chairman Rockefeller asked for a list of the companies that are allowed to place third-party charges on their customers’ telephone bills. Although the investigation is ongoing, Chairman Rockefeller is making the investigation public because an initial review of the companies placing third-party charges on consumers’ telephone bills has raised serious concerns.

The Committee’s initial review has found that:

• A significant percentage of the companies placing third-party charges on consumers’ telephone bills have “cramming” complaints from consumers filed with the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Communications Commission, and various consumer-oriented websites.

• More than 250 of these companies have a “D” or “F” rating from the Better Business Bureau.

• Many of these companies are charging telephone customers for “services,” like e-mail, online photo storage, and voice mail that are either offered for free on the Internet or can be provided to customers through their preexisting telephone service.

• While hundreds of different companies place third-party charges on American consumers’ telephone bills, many of these companies appear to be controlled by just a few companies. For example, a Florida company called daData, Inc., appears to control and operate as many as 30 different companies that charge consumers’ phone bills.

The Committee is taking the following steps in response to these findings:

• Sending requests for information to three companies that appear to have relationships with multiple companies that have “cramming” complaints

• Continuing the ongoing investigation into AT&T, Qwest, and Verizon to understand the telephone companies’ role in “cramming”

“Protecting American consumers is one of my top priorities,” Chairman Rockefeller said. “My Committee will continue to investigate businesses that engage in unscrupulous practices that harm hardworking Americans and we will not stop until consumers are no longer subjected to them. Last year, we put an end to an online practice that cost Americans more than a billion dollars in unauthorized charges on their credit and debit cards.  I’m continuing this fight – if unauthorized charges are being placed on consumers’ telephone bills, I’m going to put a stop to it.”

Today, Chairman Rockefeller sent letters to three companies that apparently own or are partnered with companies that generated a significant number of consumer “cramming” complaints.

*****************************Note From BottaBoom.  It is great to see that a prominent member of the senate and his subcommittee are attempting to protect the American telecom consumer from this ripoff practice of cramming and 3rd party billing.  It is about time that someone with courage stepped forward to investigate and attempt to stop the unsuspecting from being preyed upon each and every month.  Bravo!

If you suspect that your business has been crammed or is experiencing unusually high phone bills because of illegal telephone billing practices or telecom errors, contact BottaBoom to get a telecommunications audit.  It won’t cost you a dime out of pocket, we are only paid a percentage of what we recover on the telecom audit.  1-888-487-5326.

10. Phone fraud and hacking-phone fraud still exists and criminals are finding ways to tap into business Voice over IP services. Cramming continues to be a huge telecommunications audit recovery item and concern.
9. Telecommuting-Working from home is still a great way to cut telecom expense, particularly in the call center environment.
8. Telecom expense management software (TEM)- management of telecommunications audit with software continues to grow, particularly for larger business consumers. Make sure you shop around for the right telecommunications audit software.
7. Carrier mergers-we see no reason for the carrier merger trend to stop in 2011, in fact, we see it growing.
6. Data migration, IP telephony post migration, inventories-many companies have migrated to data centric calling technologies for cost savings.
5. Cellular optimization-wireless technology continues to boom, however, managing users and plans can be a major headache for IT managers.  The cell phone bill audit and wireless audit and recovery process has proven to be a huge telecommunications audit savings item.

4. Telecommunications Taxes & Surcharges-continue to be mistakenly charged to U.S. businesses and many non profit educational institutions, credit unions and government agencies continue to erroneously pay taxes. There is no statute of limitations for reclaiming overpaid taxes.

Do you like what you’re reading?  How about a telecommunications audit for your business?

3. Local and long distance telecommunications auditing-continues to be a huge telecommunications audit cost recovery item.
2. Telecom Audit Inventory-companies continue to pay for circuits, phone lines and locations that they simply no longer use. When they migrate to newer networks and VOIP, they often continue to pay for their old copper telephone lines and centrex services!
1. Contract reconciliation-contracts continue to auto-renew at higher rates, telecom carriers continue to make mistakes by entering incorrect contract rates into telecom billing systems and we keep getting huge refunds for telecommunications audit clients. We estimate this issue to result in billions of dollars in lost expense to American business in 2011, as was the case in previous years. This has been the first and foremost way of saving our clients large amounts of money during our telecommunications audit projects.

Is your business ready for a telecommunications audit? We offer no-out-of-pocket cost gurantee. If we cannot save your business money, you owe us absolutely nothing. Contact the telecommunications audit pros today.

The link to the smartphone audit report itself is at the following link: http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22840-audit-of-dcfs-cell-phone-use.html

Isn’t it about time your company or agency looked at getting a wireless audit?  We have saved our clients millions in telecom cost savings with our unbeatable telecom audit services.  Contact the business cell phone bill audit professionals at:  mind-my-wireless

How in the world does one get any results from the telephone company in the way of refunds, much less make a living at it?  It is often difficult enough just calling in on a simple service or repair order with the carrier to get action!  There is no easy answer to getting carrier results; however, the process of external telecommunications escalation is a powerful tool that often brings a more successful outcome to a client than simply being a nuisance or squeaky wheel to the carrier representative.  Having an effective escalation technique is often the key to the golden kingdom of telecom cost savings, the ability to get great refunds and savings from the telecom carriers.  Moreover, getting justice in the way of telecom refunds and monetary savings is attainable even when the carrier sales team is not cooperating with your efforts or is totally ineffective.  Gaining real refunds and savings for our clients through effective escalation is a necessity and doing it correctly allows us to have more confidence in getting results during the project.  Having confidence and a good plan fosters carrier respect and carrier respect accommodates monetary results.

In a perfect world, justice with the telephone companies would be served with a simple phone call and immediate acknowledgement that a mistake was made on the client’s telephone bill and a complete refund is quickly forthcoming.  Sometimes, to our utter shock and surprise, that kind of quick result actually can occur, particularly if your telecom audit client is a very large customer with a lot of monetary clout.  However, in the real world of telecom audit,  and in most cases, gaining quick credits for telecom overbilling and quickly solving billing errors just does not happen that easily.  In most cases, when we escalate a telecom billing issue to the carriers, we have to make countless calls, are given numerous delays and excuses as to why we cannot get a refund for a reasonable back credit.  We also have to be a telecom billing engineer and technical expert to enable us to translate the error on the phone bill to the telephone company representatives.  Then we must follow-up with seemingly hundreds of emails and phone calls to fix the issue (stop the bleeding) and get the refund, even when we are clearly in the right.  Next, we are taxed with digging up the history of the account, trying to dig up old email verifications or meeting notes and other documentation to prove our point to the carrier.  Moreover, even when we win and are assured that the refund or correction is in the works by the telecommunication carrier, it is often forgotten about or someone forgets to enter the case, which prompts us to have to again make even more calls months down the road.  Sometimes, we then have to open another case to enable us to again try to receive justice on something that was “already resolved.”  Most people (clients) aren’t persistent enough and get totally frustrated with the refund process and simply give up.  However, a good telecom auditor does not give up; he simply uses the tools in his escalation arsenal to gain carrier cooperation and results.

So what can we specifically do to escalate?  How can we make the process more effective?  There are a number of steps that a telecom audit specialist or business manager can take to get results.

In my search for information, I interviewed Bob Schwartz, one of the best in the cost recovery and TEM business, an expert in external telecom company escalations and a well renowned and highly effective 27 year telecom audit expert.  As the Vice President of Bill Correctors of California http://www.billcorrectors.com, Schwartz has accumulated a wealth of targeted experience in the telecom escalation process.  According to Schwartz, the public has various consumer protection agency tools at their disposal that they can use to gain better results from the carriers.

Schwartz emphasizes that first and foremost; one must understand the value of the Communications act of 1934, which sets the statute of limitations at 36 months for back telecom refunds from the carriers.  Also, every state has defining retro-active recovery points which must also be considered.  When considering refunds, you should also be aware of date of occurrence and date of discovery rules for each state.  The carrier may argue a particular state regulatory agencies’ position of date of discovery on a refund, which would only mandate that the carrier back date a refund to the date that you discovered it, not when the refund actually started.  This discovery ruling could dramatically reduce your refund so it is important and one that the carrier might try to use so be aware of it.

Schwartz says one of the most effective ways to file a consumer complaint and gain action against the carriers is to file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). There are three ways to file; an informal complaint, a formal complaint, and declaratory rulings.

The most commonly used action against carriers to gain telecom refunds is the informal complaint process with the FCC and it is very easy to do and is quite effective.  In fact, Schwartz has successfully filed numerous informal complaints on behalf of Bill Correctors’ clients over the years with the FCC, and has never lost an informal telecom escalation case with the FCC.   Schwartz explains that filing an informal complaint can be easily accomplished in two ways; it can be done by simply filling out a form online at the FCC website https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form2000.action?form_type=2000B or by copying the FCC on your escalation letter and refund request to the carriers.  Be sure that you have all of the facts and required documentation in your FCC complaint.  The FCC will then contact the telecom carrier, present them with your case and your argument to them for resolution, then follow back up with you at a later time to ensure you are satisfied with the outcome offered to you by the carrier.   The carrier (usually their legal department) is obligated to give you an answer within a reasonable amount of time of your filing the complaint, normally 30-45 days.   Informal complaints are somewhat monitored in bulk by the FCC and from time to time they can force action for correction by the carrier (s) if enough complaints are received.

Formal FCC complaints are rarely used by private companies unless there is a huge amount of monetary refund at stake (millions of dollars) but they can serve a purpose in that the process exists for those kinds of rare cases.  One must also have a specialized attorney that is well versed in the formal process to file the paperwork and work the case.  One should be prepared to spend a lot of time and money on the formal complaint process.  Also, according to Schwartz, most companies don’t want their legal issues aired to the public so they rarely file a formal complaint.

The final type of FCC billing escalation is called a declaratory ruling which has no formal format and are also rarely used.  Declaratory rulings are normally only used when one carrier makes a charge against another carrier, therefore, a telecom auditor or business owner would rarely use this action, if at all.

There are other agencies that can also be helpful, according to Schwartz, and one can also file escalations and complaints with then, depending upon the type of service.   For example, in most cases in California, for a local service billing problem escalation, consult the California Public Utility Commission because they regulate local service items.  In the case of a long distance billing issue, the FCC would be best suited to file your complaint because long distance service is regulated by the FCC.   Once again, you can copy the appropriate agency at the same time you file an escalation with the carrier as a way of keeping the carriers on their toes and gain a better chance of obtaining satisfaction for your escalation case.

Other agencies and organizations that can help in your telecom audit refund are the state attorney general, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and better business bureau.  I have found both the FCC and the FTC to be most helpful in combatting telephone bill cramming and gaining refunds from crammers.  FTC complaints can be easily filed online at this link: https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/FTC_Wizard.aspx?Lang=en.

In summary, the effectiveness of the telecommunications escalation process depends on how well we use the proper regulatory rules and agencies.  If you know the rules of the escalation game, the process can be fairly easy.  There continue to be billions of dollars waiting to be recovered by U.S. businesses because of errors by the telecommunication carriers on their invoices, let’s get started. Contact a telecommunication audit specialist today.