You may be one of the nearly 160 million phone customers who can request a refund of the 3% federal excise tax paid on long-distance and bundled phone service billed after Feb. 28, 2003 and before Aug. 1, 2006. Federal long-distance excise taxes paid on cell phone, land line, fax, Internet phone service and bundled service all qualify for the refund.
For more information about the telephone excise tax refund, click here.
There’s a chain email going around with some T-Mobile contact information attached to it claiming that if you do not register your cell phone with the “Do Not Call” list in 12 days, T-Mobile will be forced to release your number to telemarketers.
Over the past week, it’s been quite a learning experience here at The Consumerist. Former and current reps from all of the major wireless companies have written in, sharing their tips and tricks and confessing their sins. It’s been a fascinating look inside the daily life of a sales rep, but what have we learned?
Here in New York, we don’t really know much about Alltel. They seem like happy, fun people who live on that “farm” where all the city dogs go when they die. “Sorry, Becky. Spot went to live with a nice family at Alltel Wireless. He’ll be happy there.”
The jury hearing the case awarded Verizon $58 million in damages and said that the VoIP provider must pay royalties of 5.5 percent to Verizon if it wishes to continue using Verizon’s IP.
This one sounds like fraud to us…A potential Vonage customer called in response to a advertisement, but after giving her name and address and other info, decided that since she didn’t even use email, maybe VOIP wasn’t right for her. Several months later, she unexpectedly bounced a check. What happened?
A few weeks ago, we posted about WhiteFence.com, a site that lets you compare and contrast service providers, which could be especially good for when you’re moving.
Have you ever wished you could prank call a stinking Euro for free? Maybe I — John Brownlee, for those of you who think my name is ‘Ben’ or, even worse, “and Company” — wrote something that really stuck in your craw and, perhaps, a phone call made from the flatulent hollow of your butt seemed in order. But, on the other hand, why waste money on a punk like me?
UPDATE: WhiteFence is not an unbiased recommendation site. They form “partnerships” with certain providers, limiting consumer choice. Read more in this update.
It’s a testament to the anachronistic nature of my family that I — a hot, sexy male in my late 20’s — can operate a rotary phone with aplomb. A dusty, rotary wall phone with a hypnotic whirring click was present in my kitchen up until my late teens, when it suddenly and sadly gave up its ghost.
Coming in a year later than the original post, a Gizmodo reader wrote in to supplement their Lies Verizon DSL Support Has Told Me Today post of May 25th, 2005.
In a story that would never happen in America, a Japanese man was arrested after making over 37,000 calls to telephone operators because he just enjoyed the sound of their voice.
I have a great phone number, one of those numbers that’s so easy to remember that everyone thinks it is fake. I’ll give it to girls at clubs; their faces go blood red with rage and they scream, “If you didn’t want to give me your number, just say so!” right before tossing their drink in my face. Everyone’s envious — my mobile carrier always compliments me on it whenever I talk to them.
Although doubtlessly guilty of insider trading, former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio has one moral feather tucked beneath the diamond-encrusted ribbon of his Mr. Moneybags-style top hat: when the NSA approached Nacchio and demanded Qwest phone records to stave off the terrorist threat, Nacchio told them to go fuck themselves. This is while executives at companies like Verizon, AT&T and Bell South gleefully capitulated to what amounts to an illegal and unconstitutional request.
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