[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 60 (Wednesday, May 13, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4839-S4840]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ANTI-SLAMMING AMENDMENTS ACT

 Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, yesterday, Senator McCain and 
Senator Hollings proposed a managers' amendment, Amendment No. 2389 to 
S. 1618, a bill to amend the Communications Act of 1934. The amendment 
significantly improves the protections for consumers against 
``slammers,'' persons who deliberately deceive consumers and change 
their long distance carrier without proper authorization. The manager's 
amendment included two of my amendments which were cosponsored by 
Senator Durbin and Senator Glenn.
  The Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing recently 
on slamming. At this hearing, we became aware of the fact that slammers 
intentionally used names like Phone Company and Long Distance Services 
to deliberately deceive customers on their phone bills. Usually local 
telephone companies or billing agents precede an itemized list of long 
distance calls by printing the name of the long distance service 
provider. When deceptive company names are used, customers are not 
aware that their long distance service provider has been changed. My 
intention was to remedy this situation by requiring the billing 
companies to specify the long distance provider using a statement like, 
``Your provider for the following long distance service is------------
'' . If that type of statement were made conspicuously and clearly 
stated on a consumer's phone bill before the itemized long distance 
charges, consumers would know if their long distance carrier had been 
changed.
  Section 231 of the manager's amendment, entitled Obligations of 
Telephone Billing Agents, has language that differs from my proposed 
amendment. The language in the Manager's amendment is language that was 
suggested by the staff at the Federal Communications Commission.
  I chose not to use the FCC language because my staff contacted 
several telephone companies and learned that if we used the FCC 
language several problems could be created which may result in 
potential increased costs to consumers. GAO has advised my staff that 
some of the requirments in the

[[Page S4840]]

provision as passed simply can't be done.
  Because of time constraints we were unable to resolve the language in 
the provision. It is not our intention to increase consumers costs for 
telephone services in order to alert them about ``slammers.'' If the 
current bill increases costs, and we believe it could, we need to 
modify this section so consumers are protected without having to pay 
for that protection. I sincerely hope we can continue to work to 
improve this section in the conference committee, if there is one, or 
before the bill is enacted into law, to make sure that we are not 
creating a burden on telecommunications carriers which will be passed 
on to consumers.

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