Paying Too Much For Long Distance?
Hidden Charges Can Increase Your Total Bill
POSTED: 4:25 pm MST January 21, 2002
Do you know how much you're paying for long distance phone calls these days?
Consumer champ bill Clarke says you're probably paying more than you think.
Technology makes long distance telephone service a bargain. Carriers like AT&T, Sprint and Worldcom/MCI now offer dozens of cut rate calling plans.
But Clarke says that all three are boosting the basic rates they charge to many of their customers.
If you're not on any discount plan, and 25 million customers are not, you could be paying as much as 35 cents a minute.
If you're on a discount plan, you may be paying hidden fees, says Clarke.
A study by the Web site abtolls.com shows Sprint's "nickel Anytime" plan goes from five cents a minute to as much as sixteen cents when in-state calls and all the fees are factored in.
AT&T has raised its universal service fee from almost ten per cent to eleven and a half percent, Clarke says.
Sprint and MCI are now at 9.9 per cent, up significantly in the last two and a half years.
Picking a discounted payment plan? Clarke says until you've seen the monthly bills you're still taking a gamble.
In fact some of the fees you're paying do nothing but fatten someone's bottom line.
The presubscribed interexchange carrier charge was supposed to cover the cost of connecting your phone to a long distance carrier. But the carriers don't pay that charge anymore, so why should you.
And the federal excise tax on long distance calls was first imposed in 1898 to help finance the Spanish American war.
It was a temporary tax.
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Consumer champ bill Clarke says you're probably paying more than you think.
Technology makes long distance telephone service a bargain. Carriers like AT&T, Sprint and Worldcom/MCI now offer dozens of cut rate calling plans.
But Clarke says that all three are boosting the basic rates they charge to many of their customers.
If you're not on any discount plan, and 25 million customers are not, you could be paying as much as 35 cents a minute.
If you're on a discount plan, you may be paying hidden fees, says Clarke.
A study by the Web site abtolls.com shows Sprint's "nickel Anytime" plan goes from five cents a minute to as much as sixteen cents when in-state calls and all the fees are factored in.
AT&T has raised its universal service fee from almost ten per cent to eleven and a half percent, Clarke says.
Sprint and MCI are now at 9.9 per cent, up significantly in the last two and a half years.
Picking a discounted payment plan? Clarke says until you've seen the monthly bills you're still taking a gamble.
In fact some of the fees you're paying do nothing but fatten someone's bottom line.
The presubscribed interexchange carrier charge was supposed to cover the cost of connecting your phone to a long distance carrier. But the carriers don't pay that charge anymore, so why should you.
And the federal excise tax on long distance calls was first imposed in 1898 to help finance the Spanish American war.
It was a temporary tax.
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