Calling Card Companies Put Deceptive Practices on Hold
June 11th, 2008 by flanewsPeople using prepaid phone cards in Florida should expect to get every minute they pay for. The Attorney General’s office is asking 9 prepaid calling card companies to start playing by the rules. An investigation by the AG’s office uncovered deceptive advertising and hidden charges by the companies. Some companies were charging people as much as 70 cents just to end a call, two dollars a month if all the minutes weren’t used. They were even rounding call times up to the nearest 4 minute mark. Deputy Attorney General Bob Hannah said the companies will stop over charging callers.
“We are going to require that they end the process of pumping up the time from a 1:10 to 4 minutes. They can only round up to a minute so that practice is going to end under the terms of this agreement,” said Hannah.
Some companies were advertising in Spanish and posting disclaimers in English, so unless a user was bilingual they couldn’t read the fine print.
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