In years past, just about everyone had a home phone or landline. Today it is becoming more and more common for people to only have a mobile phone and no landline in their home. Those that do have a landline in their home need to keep an eye on their bill as a new report has surfaced that Americans are being charged for a huge amount of unauthorized services each month.

A study that lasted for a year was published by the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee and found that Americans were charged about $2 billion in so-called mystery fees in a single year which is called “cramming”. The charges show up on the often confusing bills for landline phone services and typically the customer billed never receives the services charged for. A hearing was held in Washington to ask major telecom companies what the charges are about.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat from West Virginia, asked an industry rep why major telecom firms like AT&T hadn’t stopped the unauthorized charges on phone bills by third parties. Rockefeller said, "It's illegal, it's wrong, it's scamming. Why haven't you cleaned up your act?"

The industry representative the question was posed to is Walter McCormick, president and CEO of the U.S. Telecom Association. McCormick said, "The industry has taken significant steps. Even the report that you issued today indicates that there has been improvement, but it remains a very, very significant, very pervasive problem."

The report also points out that the phone companies receive a fee of a few dollars from the third-party billers and these fees can add up to a significant amount over time with the number of customers the phone companies have. AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest made about $650 million over the last five years from these fees alone.

Washington is also being joined by a number of states in the fight against these unauthorized charges.