New regulations, marketing changes and a consumer shift toward cell phones and the Internet have curbed one of the more annoying battlefields between callers and phone companies in North Carolina – the unwanted phone service switch.

Fewer reports of illegal service switches were reported to the N. C. Utilities Commission this year to date than in the same period last year, said Nick Jeffries, a commission complaint analyst.

«Slamming» is the practice of changing a consumer’s telephone service without permission. The commission received 584 reports of slamming in 2003, and 441 slamming complaints so far this year, Jeffries said.

Nine consumers from Rocky Mount filed complaints this year, and four were found to be valid, Jeffries said.

One tactic used by telemarketers brings in a friend of a salesman to call a third-party verification service, Jeffries said. The stand-in claims to be the customer and authorizes a switch, he said.

«What we look for on a valid slam is a pattern,» Jeffries said. «We’ll wait for five or six valid complaints» then assess fines starting at $50,000.

While the state can also issue fines, the Federal Communications Commission passed anti-slamming rules in 2000 to curb the problem. Victims of an unwanted switch don’t have to pay charges from a slam for the 30 days after their service was switched. After, slammed customers pay charges to their authorized phone company at the authorized carrier’s standard rates.

If a customer catches a switch after paying the bill, the slamming company must pay the customer’s authorized provider 150 percent of the customer’s payment to the slammer. A third of that is returned to the customer.

«You have to be very careful about what you say yes to on the phone,» said Tom Matthews, a Sprint Corp. spokesman for North Carolina. «There may still be cases when someone’s aggressive marketing programs still switch you without your consent. It may or may not be an actual phone company doing it.»

Matthews noted an instance in which a contest entry form for a free trip had fine print on the back authorizing a phone service switch. Customers – particularly those who use an automated bill payment system and don’t always open their bills – must remain vigilant, he said.

«I force myself to open up that bill detail and scroll through the thing,» he said. «You start with the bottom line and you know how much you pay each month.»

The N. C. Utilities Commission prepared a suit against a California company earlier this year, but after an early spike has had fewer complaints this year, Jeffries said. He attributed the decline in part to customers using their land lines less and their cell phones more.

«If you have a cell phone where you’ve got unlimited long distance, then why wouldn’t you use this,» he said.

Long distance carriers have had a difficult business climate for the past few years. WorldCom Inc. (now MCI) filed for bankruptcy after a spectacular accounting disaster and allegations of fraud in 2001. AT&T Corp. announced earlier this year that it would no longer market long distance service to consumers.

«Long distance now has become a commodity,» Matthews said. «Competition is such that the business case for selling long distance by itself is nonexistent.»

Indeed, Jeffries also attributes the reduction in slamming complaints to consumers using bundled packages for local and long distance services.

Consumers can report suspected slamming to the N. C. Utilities Commission at 919–733–9277.

By George A. Chidi, Rocky Mount Telegram