Charged up about the cost of a cell phone battery

I've been debating getting rid of M and my cell phones. Buying a cell phone battery has pushed me a little closer to hitting "End Call" permanently.

I've had my LG VX3300 cell phone for about 15 months--not that long, in my estimation. I use it only moderately; I rarely go over the minutes in my service plan and I turn it off when I'm at work. So the fact that the factory model battery recently stopped holding its charge for any length of time was annoying enough.

Then I went to my friendly local Verizon accessory dealer for a replacement. The pricetag: an appalling $49. More than twice as much as I expected. As M pointed out after I got back, "For that, you could have gotten a whole new phone."

I want what I want
Yes, I could have. But I didn't want a new phone. My phone serves my purposes well enough. I don't need a cameraphone, a webphone, or a phone with the ability to answer e-mail.

And I definitely don't want a new cell phone plan, which cheap new phones often come with. I can't wait for our current two-year contract to run out so we can unload it from our monthly budget. I'd rather put $82 toward CJ Jr's college fund--which we've temporarily stopped contributing to, since we went to one income--than give it to Verizon.

I've considered paying the cancellation fee. Dishing out the $150 for each of our two phones is less than half than amount we'll pay ($738) for the next nine months to finish out the contract. But I just can't stomach putting out that kind of money for absolutely nothing.

Two big errors
I do shoulder some of the blame for my battery "overcharge." I didn't shop around beforehand, as I normally do. Afterwards I found one online for half the price.

I also took CJ Jr. with me on my little errand. I may have been more inclined to go to a couple different places, or even ask the Verizon guy about other options, if I had been able to keep both eyes on the cash register instead of one eye on CJ.

Now M and I have to revisit our January spending plan and figure out where that extra $30 or so will come from. That may not sound like much, but it eats up a little chunk of our expected household expenses for the month, which we try to keep as fixed as possible.

Besides, I just wanted a battery, at a reasonable price. Is that too much to ask?

We've been "crammed!"

That's right, crammed. And I didn't even know it.

"Cramming" is the practice of unethical companies burying charges in the pages of your phone bill for services you never authorized or even used. The charges can range from a few dollars to double-digit amounts--but often not large enough for you to notice and question the total amount of your bill.

My family was fortunate because the charge was small, we picked up on it right away, and it took just one call to get it removed. But others haven't been as lucky. Cramming can mean shelling out quite a few bucks, wasting a lot of time on the phone, and dealing with a big headache.

Getting a name pays off
I discovered we'd been crammed thanks to writing this blog--specifically the "To get better service, get a name" post a few weeks back. I was going to write about my experience following up on a $7.64 "miscellaneous charge" included in our August phone bill from a company named OAN Services, Inc. The charge was for a call from our home phone line to a strange-looking, 9-digit number, one that neither I nor my wife M could recall making.

I called the 800-number provided on the bill for OAN and told their representative that the charge was either a mistake or bogus, and we wouldn't be paying it. The OAN woman briefly tried to explain what it was for--which I still don't know, but it was something having to do with the Internet--but I stood my ground. When she finally said she'd have the charge removed, I dutifully wrote down her first and last name--just like I advise in my post--and confirmed that it had been done a few days later by checking my bill online.

I couldn't recall the woman's name, so I couldn't use the experience for my "Get a name" post. But in looking up OAN on the Internet to try and jog my memory, I discovered that the company's business is scamming people through unauthorized phone charges.

Rip-off reports galore
According to posts on www.ripoffreport.com, OAN billed one person in Illinois $53 for "non-basic service charges." "After calling the numbers provided on the Verizon Bill...we were placed on hold for a period of time, then when we disputed the call they said we had said yes to this service. Verizon would not address this issue, only tell us to call the numbers provided," the Illinois resident said.

"This company is charging me for Directory assistance in Nevada that I never used. My phone Company...said that there was nothing they could do...My charge was $7.14. Imagine multiplying that by all the phones and cell phones in the United States and you have a MULTI_MILLION dollar business," wrote Patti from Missouri.

And blogger Brian Patton had to make five calls and spend a couple hours on the phone to get a $50 charge removed from his bill.

If you're a victim, too
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are well aware of cramming. Here are a few tips from the FCC to protect yourself:

• Review your phone bill every month (as you should do with every bill and account statement you receive). Keep an eye out for calls to unfamiliar numbers, or for services that you don't recall ordering or using.


• Make sure you know what service was provided, even for small charges such as $2.00 or $3.00.


• If you can't explain what a charge is for, call your phone company or other service number provided and question its authenticity.


• Keep a record of the telephone services you have authorized and used – including calls to 900-numbers and other types of telephone information services.


• Read the fine print in promotional materials before signing up for telephone or other services to be billed on your phone bill.

If you have been crammed, immediately call the company that charged you and request to have the charges removed. If that doesn't work, you have several options: contact your state Attorney General's office, enlist the help of your local Better Business Bureau, or escalate your complaint to the FTC or FCC. The FTC, in fact, has a special cramming hotline at 202-326-3134.

One theme consistent in "cramming resolution" success stories: Be persistent. It may take several calls and some time, but you should be able to stop it and even have your money refunded.

And if OAN is the one you're after, here's where I reached them: 800-731-7777.

Visit this week's carnival of personal finance
Everybody loves the carnival, and Everybody Loves Your Money is the host of Carnival of Personal Finance #75. The list of personal finance articles seems to grow every week. Here are my favorites:

• It's Just Money: "How much do I say?" The LAMoney Guy struggles to decide whether he should speak up to help his sister and brother-in-law avoid a financial train wreck.
• Art of Money: "Micro-lending and the art of poverty" Jon profiles Muhammad Yunus, who will receive the Nobel Peace Prize in December for making loans to the poor.
• FIRE Finance: "All is well if our HEART is well" Here's an interesting and creative way to think about the things that make for a good retirement.