Alpine Communications Blog

You're looking at your phone bill thinking someone must have made a mistake. How can you be charged for web hosting when you don't know what web hosting is? Why does your bill list a couple of international calls when all your friends and business contacts are stateside?

Chances are you've been crammed.

Cramming happens when an independent company adds a charge to your Alpine Communications phone bill for a service you didn't order, agree to, or use.

You may wonder why Alpine Communications would allow such charges be added to your local phone bill. Cramming companies have billing addresses so if these charges were not billed on your local phone bill, they would be billed directly to you. By allowing these charges on your local phone bill, Alpine is able to assist in stopping the service and helping get the charges reversed.

What can you do? Read Your Bill

• Catching cramming charges means taking time to read your Alpine phone bill each month - that is, once you get to know your bill a little better.
• If your telephone bill changes from month to month...Make it a habit to check the charges on your bill each month for services you haven't ordered or calls you haven't made.
• If your telephone bill usually is the same...If your bill goes up one month, even by just a few dollars, take a closer look. Theres no one type of cramming charge. Some charges appear just once; others are "subscription" charges that show up every month. Are there calls you didn't make? Charges for Internet services from a company you don’t know? Area codes you've never heard of, like 011 or 500? The charges could be for anything, including:
  
  • access to restricted websites 
  • collect calls
  • entertainment services with a 900 area code
  • club memberships

Reduce Your Risk of Cramming
Sometimes, there's nothing you can do to prevent a determined crammer from adding fake charges to your phone bill. Take the following actions if unknown or suspicious charges are listed on your telephone bill:

• Immediately call the company that charged you for calls you did not place, or services you did not authorize or use. Ask the company to explain the charges. Request an adjustment to your bill for any incorrect charges.
• Call Alpine Communications at 245-4000. We can assist you with the procedure for removing incorrect charges from your bill.

** Customers have reported that "cramming companies" seem to be telling the customer the same thing.  Many ask the customers to verify some form of information, such as an address and then the recorded "yes" is used as a verification for the sale.  Don't say yes. If you do end up in a conversation with a telemarketer never use the word yes. Use words like maybe, possibly, I don't know, etc.