Earlier this week, the FCC spoke at the Center of American Progress about their goals to prevent wireless service providers from charging unauthorized fees and "cramming" other mystery fees. Cramming is a fee used by wireless providers that typically adds $2 to $20 per month, often unrelated to the service requested by consumers.

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, Photo Courtesy of Creative Commons.

This tactic, unfortunately, are used more frequently than not. Most recently, a St. Louis woman discovered that she had been charged long-distance services for two years even though she never signed up for the service. Examples like these have been rampant enough to warrant a reaction. 

The FCC already fined four small wireless companies $11.7 million for cramming last week. Taking a frim stance, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski stated in the Chairman's message: "If you charge consumers unauthorized fees, you will be discovered and you will be punished."

Genachowski also said, "This is about making sure consumers aren't getting ripped off and also fostering trust in our communication services. Practices that hurt the trust and confidence consumers have in communication services are bad for our economy."

In October, Neon Tommy reported that the FCC pushed a motion to enact Bill Shock rules, which would effectively prevent unknown overage charges. Following FCC action, wireless carriers must now alert customers when usage limits are reached--this including notifications of international and roaming charges--as well as educate the public of this new terminology.

The FCC is hoping to better interact with consumers by providing a list of tips to individually prevent cramming charges, in addition to gauging public opinion of the AT&T/T-Mobile merger by creating a website where people can comment about their thoughts of the merger. 

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