If your business completes a fair amount of long distance calling, casual billing is something you should be aware of. The last thing you want is to find out about it after it already occurred and you’re looking at a six figure phone bill.
Casual billing occurs when long distance calling takes place on a phone line without an assigned long distance carrier or if no calling plan has been designated.
Casual billing could occur when:
A long distance provider’s standard rates are always high, sometimes more than two dollars a minute. Since long distance billing “lags” it will take a month or more to discover the problem, and long distance providers do not proactively alert their customers. You can’t expect to be warned if such a circumstance arises because many times you’re not a customer of the long distance provider that’s billing you and typically long distance providers don’t have a mechanism to recognize a problem.
Another reason why providers don’t proactively warn companies when casual billing is taking place is because it’s profitable. There are no laws or regulations in place requiring the carriers to reverse the charges.
How do you avoid casual billing?
Next week: What to do if your company is a victim of casual billing.