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The 411 on a fee for an unlisted number
Logo from a Yellow Pages telephone directory
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TEXT OF INTERVIEW
BOB MOON: Time to get the 411 on something you might be paying for but not getting. Our regular contributor here, L.A. Times business columnist David Lazarus has taken a look at phone directories, and he tells us he's turned up a wrong number. We all like getting something for nothing, but this charge turns that idea on its head. David, thanks for joining us.
DAVID LAZARUS: My pleasure.
MOON: And I understand that we are being charged for something that we're not even getting? What is this?
LAZARUS: You don't see this a lot, being charged a monthly fee for a service you didn't even ask for in the first place. But this is what the telecom companies do if you ask to have your number unlisted. In other words, not in the phone book, not when you call 411. Most, if not all, telecom companies -- that's the phone and the cable companies -- will charge you a monthly fee. And the fee can be all over the place. For instance, Time Warner Cable -- $0.99 a month -- goes all the way up to Charter Communications, another cable company that charges $5 a month to not provide a service to you.
MOON: This is a fee that I know has existed for a long time, but times have changed right?
LAZARUS: And so has technology. And the simplicity of making the change and having the customers' preference recorded you would think would only be a one-time affair. In fact, industry insiders say, 'yeah, it's not that hard. We make the change in the database and that's it. It's done.' But the telco's charge it over and over. And I put it to them. I called every single one of them that I could get my hands on, and in fact one of them -- Charter -- even said to me, 'well, we charge a recurring fee because the other companies do.'
MOON: So why does it work this way? It seems backwards to me. Why not opt in to a phone directory if you want your number listed?
LAZARUS: That's a terrific question, and the reason is very simple. This fee represents millions and millions of dollars in revenue for the telcom companies. And it represents a significant boost to their bottom line at time when many of these markets are already mature. If this were turned around and it became an opt-in -- so a customer would say, 'I want to be in on the directory' -- that's a much more customer-friendly approach. It's also a much less profitable approach for the telco's, so you can understand why they wouldn't want an opt-in approach.
MOON: Now it sounds like the consumer is going to have to start fighting back in order to get this fee changed, perhaps?
LAZARUS: And there are a number of ways that you can fight back. I've heard from a number of customers that say, 'you know what we do. We keep our number listed, but we put a bogus name in.'
MOON: So in the meantime, we're just all going to have to keep ponying up here.
LAZARUS: I think so, and tell your elected representatives that this is a fee you don't quite understand, see if you can put a little push behind it.
MOON: David Lazarus is a business columnist for the Los Angeles Times. Thanks for joining us.
LAZARUS: My pleasure.
I switched to a cell phone for my only phone line 10 years ago, and was a latecomer among my techie friends, because at the time the telecom companies were offering "neat-o" features like Caller-ID, call forwarding, voice mail (though Cingular provided a pittance of voice mail storage unless you ponied up for "enhanced voice mail"), etc,. as some of the inclusive bells and whistles of subscribing to PCS wireless phone services. The phones they offered added things like distinctive ring for incoming numbers (or groups of numbers). All the while, these companies nickel and dimed consumers for these features on landlines. Amazing. Today ... I don't know if
You've got the whole reasons for this fee ack basswards. The reason for the fees, no matter how outrageous they are, is that consumers are paying for the privilege of having a "Private" number. It's not surprising that these fee contribute so heavily to the bottom line of the Telecommunications Companies. Governments, Banks and Insurance companies do the same squeezing all sorts of "revenue enhancements" from the consumer. The biggest problem is not these companies and Governments but the people who accept these ripoffs without question or protest. "We have no one to blame for this filthy, dirty, rotten system but ourselves" said Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker in the 1930's. Her statement holds true to this day.
This fee has been a "thorn in my side" for a long time! Supposedly it exists because the phone company would have an increased number of people calling 411 to try to get the unpublished number, but AT&T no longer offers ANY free directory assistance calls (it used to be 3 per month), and these calls are now handled by voice recognition systems, not live human beings which are paid salaries! They now charge almost $2 each for 411 calls (including the 'taxes & fees'), so there is now NO reason to charge any monthly fee for an unlisted number, since they MAKE money for each call to 411 now! Also, why should we pay fees for call waiting, caller ID, etc., when these features are part of an electronic switch's system software, and they only have to 'flip a bit' to turn them on or off? VoIP telephone service provides all the 'features' for free!
