So you’ve heard of slamming, right? That’s where a phone company comes along and takes over your long distance service without you knowing it and then slams you with an whopping phone bill. Well, look out, there’s a newer, slimier practice emerging among phone companies called casual billing.

Casual billing is similar to slamming in that you get billed for services from another long distance carrier. But the difference is that they don’t switch you over permanently, they just bill you at outrageous rates for a few calls and their charges appear on your local phone bill.

MCI did this to me recently. I made four long distance faxes on our business phone, connect time of about 15 seconds each, and they charged me $5 per fax! When I called MCI, the trained liar I talked to said that it was because the calls were randomly assigned to a long distance carrier by my local phone company (Verizon) and the calls were charged at market rates because I wasn’t on a calling plan and, oh by the way, would I like to sign up? Smelling fecal matter, I told her that if MCI was going to screw me like that, I better at least get a kiss. Then I called Verizon. They confirmed that what the trained liar at MCI told me was a load of horse $hit and they deleted the charge. If MCI wants the money, they have to come after me directly instead of weaseling it through Verizon. With business practices like that, is it any wonder that MCI/Worldcom went bankrupt?

Look over your phone bill carefully. You have been warned.