Ms. Buyer is a regular columnist for the THE BULLETIN of the Bar Association of Erie County and is a contributor to No Jitter. Previously, she has written numerous commentaries on telecommunications law for other legal and telecommunications publications including, among others, The Daily Record, Communications Convergence and Computer Telephony. Her articles cover a broad range of topics highlighting current telecommunications issues including federal and state telecommunications policy, litigation, wireless technologies, spectrum policy, FCC initiatives, and industry consolidation. Martha Buyer has also contributed to the ABA Journal Report.
With spring come new leaves, flowers, and apparently bad guys. On two different listservs of which I’m a member, numerous notes have been racing around about a new and nefarious scam that’s making its way to various end users of telecommunications services.
It is no secret that many people have chosen to completely replace their landlines with wireless devices—and have done so for a number of very good reasons: Not only are wireless devices mobile, but you don’t have to worry about making any changes when you relocate to a new residence. And of course smart phones, in particular, are much more than just telephones: They’re capable of all sorts of sophisticated functions that the wired set at home just can’t perform. Although I have no plans to take similar action, I understand why people make this decision.
Most people dislike off-shore call centers. In fact, the largest telecommunications companies know that Americans dislike off-shore call centers with such intensity that those largest companies often use the repatriating off-shore call centers as an incentive to encourage regulatory bodies to approve otherwise less than desirable combinations (read: AT&T’s recent unsuccessful attempt to acquire T-Mobile). Much to the dismay of those of us who have reached out and touched one of these call centers, what may have been saved by the companies providing overseas call center support has been lost in customer satisfaction.
On December 12, 2011, the Florida Attorney General’s office announced that it had reached a settlement with AT&T Mobility, “resolving allegation that the company charged Florida customers’ wireless device bills for a service that those customers neither ordered nor wanted.” The AVC, short for “Assurance of Voluntary Compliance” (one wonders how truly “voluntary” it is, but I digress) is the result of unauthorized charges appearing on some AT&T Mobility bills. Specifically, the AG determined that over a 7 year period, more than 600,000 AT&T Mobility customers, whose billing addresses are within the state of Florida, were charged for Roadside Assistance at $2.99 per month without either granting consent for such charges or using the service.
While most of us were in the throes of a self-induced butter/sugar-diet coma between Christmas and New Years', the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals announced two important decisions, covering a number of consolidated cases on the issue of warrantless wiretapping. The program, under which telecommunications service companies conducted warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens at the direction of the National Security Administration (NSA), allowed access to both domestic and international telephone communications and emails without warrant. These actions, which were initially were disclosed in 2005 by the New York Times, and confirmed by the President in early 2006, were originally approved by President George W. Bush, shortly after the tragic events of 9/11.
Print Article