FCC fines telecom firm accused of deceptive practices $1M

The Federal Communications Commission said on Tuesday that it will hand a $1 million fine to Advantage Telecommunications for illegally switching customers’ long-distance carriers without authorization.

The Florida-based long-distance carrier had also added unapproved charges to consumers’ phone bills, according to the FCC. The FCC found Advantage to be in violation of its “truth-in-billing rules” by failing to clearly describe charges to its customers, most of which were small businesses.

In total, consumers filed over 150 complaints to the FCC against the telecommunications company. Issues cited included Advantage employees posing as employees of their businesses’ actual long-distance providers and then subsequently switching their service.

{mosads}Switching customers’ service without authorization — otherwise known as “slamming” — and adding unauthorized charges to bills — “cramming” — are two practices that the FCC has been trying to curb in recent years.

In 2016 alone, the agency fined three companies a combined $29 million and another three $11 million.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai lamented the practice in February of 2016 and blamed the proliferation of companies engaging in slamming and cramming on existing FCC policies.

“Over the past several years, we’ve increasingly seen hucksters and criminals profit from reselling telephone services to American consumers without their consent,” Pai said. “As I remarked last year, there is now a market for fraud. “And it’s a market our own rules created because they specifically prohibit a carrier from verifying whether a carrier-change request is legitimate or not.”