http://money.cnn.com/2012/12/28/tech...lls/index.html

I am usually the first one to criticize attempts to coddle prisoners -- especially ones in for violent crimes -- but I fully agree with what the FCC is doing here.

The prison pay phone industry is a little-known and little-discussed racket, where people are ripped off daily both through price gouging and outright fraud. This gets little discussion (and usually little sympathy) because the perceived victims are inmates who people believe deserve everything they get.

But here's the reality:

1) Prison pay phones are the only way that inmates can communicate by phone to their families. There is no choice. There is no competition, and the customer base is literally captive.

2) Prisoners are often not the ones paying. It's usually their families who accept the collect calls that are stuck paying. (Some of them allow the prisoners to pay themselves with credit cards, but in most cases it's the family member stuck footing the bill.)

3) The rates charged to complete these calls are sky-high. Keep in mind that it is extremely cheap to complete calls in 2012 -- especially domestic ones. This is why you can purchase an unlimited US long distance plan on a home phone for $25, and why all cell phones allow you to dial domestic long distance for free (as well as have unlimited minutes outside of prime hours). Even international calls can be completed very cheaply to most first-world countries these days. There is simply never a reason to charge more than a few cents per minute for domestic calls unless you are gouging the customer.

4) The excuse for the high rates is that special controls have to be implemented into the phone system in order to block certain numbers and to monitor certain calls. That is ridiculous. Once such a system is in place, it is very cheap to operate.

5) These third-party companies that complete prison calls are EXTREMELY shady and also engage in outright fraud. I have been a victim of this fraud several times over the years. Every so often, I would find something like $17 on my home phone bill, and it would be from a weird-looking long distance company. I would check my caller ID and see that the call never existed, even though the call was listed as taking place for something like 7 minutes. I would call the company and they would be very rude and obnoxious, telling me that there's no way their system could be wrong, and that I had to pay the $17. I would then call my local phone company, who would take it off the bill and block that company from ever billing me. However, many people just break down and pay it without taking that last step, or they never notice it in the first place, given the confusing nature of phone bills. This is VERY COMMON and is a practice known as "cramming". These prison pay phone companies love cramming because it's difficult to prove and it adds a nice revenue stream.


It's time to take these third party companies out of the prison pay phone business. Just make these pay phones the responsibility of the area's local phone company, charge normal rates for the calls, and be done with it. Time to end this profitable racket for these scam communications companies.