Have You Ever Been Crammed?

Last month the state of Illinois officially banned “cramming.” It’s a pity more states don’t follow suit.

“Cramming" is when a third party adds bogus charges to your telephone, landline or cell phone, for services you don’t want and didn’t order. If you have never been “crammed,” you’re lucky. It is reportedly a $2 billion a year bogus industry, according to Chicago’s www.wbez.org. The charges can range from such things as charges for “special voicemail” and “identity theft insurance.”

I happen to know from personal experience it can also be from games that you didn’t even know you had downloaded to your cell phone. My husband incurred six charges, over two months, at $9.99 each for games he supposedly downloaded to his cell phone. When I questioned the charges, the cell phone company asked whether I was “sure he didn’t download them.” Yes, I’m sure. My husband is, shall we politely say, more than a little critical of those who “waste their time with stupid games” - many of them his own direct descendants.

Three months later, and a couple of threats to change companies, we finally had the charges removed, but it isn’t always easy to do. We'd had a block put on a couple of years before and it had somehow been lifted. Without that, having the almost $60 worth of charges removed might have been pretty much impossible.

Illinois and Vermont are two states that have outlawed cramming, but so far it only applies to landlines. Illinois is reportedly thinking of extending it to cell phones as well. I'm not sure why it didn't do that in the first place.

Have you ever been crammed? Do you think that more states, including Georgia, should ban this practice?