Even though most companies would list the phone bill as one of their top expenses, few take the time to have someone look over the bill for errors. A study found that 80 percent of U.S. businesses have errors on their phone bills that are never found or reported.
The problem comes from the long-standing system phone companies use to track their services and billing. The system is split into two sections: The section that keeps track of what services a customer has, and the section that bills the customers. “The process itself is inherently faulty,” says professional Frank Stoczko. “It’s quite often the case that there’s faulty entry between the two systems, which results in faulty billing.” Stoczko says a customer may get a feature (such as caller ID) and then cancel it, but the phone company may only cancel it from the service section of the billing system. Then, customers are being charged for a service they no longer have.
According to Stoczko, billing errors have been occurring since the dawn of telecommunications, and certain phone providers can be almost relied on to make trademark mistakes. “As soon as I see who the telephone company [on the bill] is, I look for those specific things, because, invariably, those kinds of errors are repetitive; they happen quite often,” he said.
Without actually stating that phone companies make these erroneous charges on purpose, Stoczko does point out that it is in the phone companies’ interest to allow these mistakes to be made. ” [Telecoms] will just let mistakes go and wait for clients to come back and ask for a refund for that money,” he said. “They will pay them that money, while the other customers’ [overcharges] will just be pocketed.”
However, some of the phone companies overcharge through legitimate services that are not really necessary. One such service is an insurance premium for in-house wiring that some companies charge a flat fee for (maybe $4 or $5 a month). Stoczko says it is a good idea to get rid of services like this, because it is a service that probably won’t ever see use. “[Consumers] pay for the insurance for the entire time they have telephone service – which could be 10, 20, 30 or 50 years – and never once use that service, or maybe once in a lifetime they’ll use that service,” he said. “Most people would be better served by simply cutting that from their bill, discontinuing it, and if they ever have an issue, calling in a technician for $40 to $60 per hour. In most cases, they could fix it in an hour or two. You’d be way ahead of the game.”
Most phone companies are willing to work to correct the problems, says Stoczko. However, some companies, especially the older, more established ones, can give him some bureaucratic static when he is trying to recover his clients’ money. “You can go for weeks and months just trying to get to the right person that you need to talk to, because one person sends you to another person, who sends you to another person,” he said, but that’s not he only obstacle Stoczko faces. “It’s quite often the case that a vendor will say, ‘Well, it was on your bill. Why haven’t you ever noticed it before?’ Well, the fact is that it should never have been on my bill to begin with.”
Most companies cannot afford to spend the time and money chasing down mistakes on their bill, and then wading through the significant red tape involved in obtaining a refund. Because this process is TeamNCTY’s job, it is no problem for them to take care of that kind of hassle, and the best part of the deal for customers is: If TeamNCTY doesn’t find any money-draining mistakes on the phone bills, they don’t charge clients a penny.
The trick is to not gloss over your phone bill. Closely scrutinizing your bill each month, because the extra time you spend going over your bill can save you a lot of money in the long run.
A consumer may be paying a bill, and if they suddenly see an extra $2 charge, most assume it’s a surcharge and pay the bill without thinking about it. The reality is that the charge could have been billed incorrectly. These small charges add up over the course of time, so you need to keep your eye on your monthly bills, and not pay for anything you’re not using.
The overcharging problem is rampant across all aspects of telecommunications.
Ignorance and complacency are two big obstacles for companies and phone users to overcome before they can save money. Many do not think to check their bill, and few realize just how much money they are giving away over the course of their service. It is a good idea to take the time to look over your bill for mistakes. Just don’t rely on the phone company to do it for you.