When you sign up for a contract or a plan at a carrier, they tell you that you have to pay X amount, but when your bill arrives, it’s more than that. You try to study the bill but it’s full of numbers, codes, and basically it’s too long and confusing to make sense, so you just end up paying whatever is written thinking that maybe you exceeded your minutes or it could be additional taxes.
However this is a practice known as cramming, which according to the FCC’s definition refers to the “illegal act of placing unauthorized charges on your wireline, wireless, or bundled services telephone bill.” Now we know that AT&T has gotten themselves into trouble over the practice, and now it looks like Sprint could be landing themselves into a spot of trouble too.
According to anonymous FCC officials, the agency is currently considering slapping Sprint with a $105 million fine for bill cramming. The commissioners are at the moment reviewing the case and will soon be casting their votes on whether or not Sprint will be facing the fine. Officially neither Sprint nor the FCC have commented (and have declined to comment) as the proposed fine has yet to be made public.
The FCC is also said to be investigating similar complaints levied against T-Mobile. Based on the FCC’s estimates, they believe that tens of millions of American households have been affected by bill cramming, so safe to say this is an issue that they are not taking lightly.