Getting nickeled and dimed?

Here's how phone companies are simplifying your phone bill

Does your phone bill read more like the phone book? Endless pages of charges that leave you scratching your head? If so, you're not alone. The Federal Communications Commission logs a whopping 10,000 calls each month from people who have questions about their phone bills, says FCC Commissioner William Kennard. "We receive a half-million calls each month from consumers questioning phone charges," adds Frank Bennett, vice president of customer billing for Bell Atlantic. If you're one of that growing number, help will soon be on the way.

In response to consumer complaints, the FCC has issued voluntary guidelines for phone companies to follow when issuing phone bills. Consumers can expect to see less-complicated and easy-to-read bills that summarize all the phone services you've ordered (such as call waiting or call forwarding) on one page. A separate page or section would list any changes in your service or new charges. Companies providing you with services such as personal 800 numbers or paging devices will be listed by name, along with clear details of what you're being charged for. The FCC hopes this will make it harder for telemarketers to sneak unauthorized charges onto your bill.

Bell Atlantic has begun test-marketing a newly designed phone bill with 450,000 customers in West Virginia. Beginning early next year, 5 million Bell Atlantic customers in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia will receive the new phone bills. "We've done away with the coupon-size pages and moved closer to an 8.5-by-11-inch format," says Bennett. "The language used to describe what the customer is paying for will be much simpler.

Instead of using our technical in-house terms for services like voice-mail boxes or call waiting, we're going to use the terms the customers use when ordering the service." In the meantime, "Consumers should read their phone bills with the same care they would their credit card bill, bank statement or other financial documents," says Kathie Kneff, special advisor for external communications within the Enforcement Division of the FCC's Common Carrier Bureau.

The charges on your phone bill are generally divided into two sections. There are fees for local phone service from Bell Atlantic, Bell South, US West or other carriers. Then you have long-distance charges from companies like MCI, AT&T and Sprint. Using a phone bill from a D.C. resident, Kathleen Levy, director of Bell Atlantic's new Express Trak phone bill, offers these explanations of terms that appear on the local-service portion of the phone bill:

* Monthly service. Fees for phone services such as call waiting, voice-mail boxes and call forwarding. Also includes the rate for limited calls or unlimited local calls.

* Federally ordered subscriber line charge. Local phone companies charge this fee to help pay the cost of linking your residential service to the national and international phone network. It's how they recoup the cost of providing outside telephone wires, telephone poles and underground conduits.

* Service not regulated by public service commission. Typically refers to the insurance policy for your in-home wiring.

* Gross receipts tax surcharge. Similar to a sales tax, this tax is imposed by your city or county to raise money to pay for local services.

The portion of the phone bill that includes fees for long-distance service contains two new charges consumers should understand.

* Federal universal service fee. This fee appears courtesy of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act requires all long-distance companies to put money into a fund that provides schools and libraries with Internet service. Money from this universal service fund also helps provide poor people and those in rural areas with affordable phone service. Long-distance carriers have chosen to get money from the phone customer for the fund by charging a Federal Universal Service fee. MCI, for example, bills customers 5% of their state-to-state and international calls. Sprint charges 4.5% of a customer's interstate and international calls, while AT&T bills customers a flat rate of 93 cents.

* National access fee. Carriers like MCI, Sprint and AT&T must pay your local phone company a fee to use lines in order to start and stop long-distance phone calls. That fee is passed on to consumers through the national access fee. MCI's flat rate for the access fee is $1.07, while Sprint and AT&T charge 85 cents.

If charges appear on your bill that you don't understand, call the phone company and have a billing agent walk you through the fees. If you're still unsatisfied, you can file a complaint with the FCC. For interstate or international complaints, write to: Federal Communications Commission, Common Carrier Bureau, Consumer Complaints, Mail Stop Code 1600A2, Washington, DC 20554. For intrastate complaints, contact your state's Public Utility Commission.

Don't get crammed 

Scams and phony charges involving phone service are on the rise, which makes it more important than ever for consumers to carefully read their phone bills. According to the Washington, D.C.-based National Consumer's League, a practice called "cramming" is the No.1 complaint on its consumer fraud hotline [phone]). That's when telemarketers slip charges for such services as pagers and personal 800 numbers into your phone bill without your authorization. The more you understand the routine charges on your bill, the easier it is to spot unauthorized fees that may pop up. --K.G.