[telecom] Integretel nailed at last

...

Lots more info at:

I'll disagree with "the good guys win". The whole issue of "cramming" and similar sleaze tactics only continue thanks to the willing (some might say eager) assistance of the telcos.

The telcos could, if they wanted, stop 99 percent of this garbage if their contracts with the billing folk simply said something like "this contract is void if there's a 2 percent complaint rate".

Similarly, it's about time these [expletives deleted] and their facilitators started seeing criminal charges.

If the local plumbing supply house sends around Mr. Gotti with an invoice for fake sewer cleanup, he and his friends eventually face the DA. If the telcos send out 100,000 bills of this sort, and perhaps 10 percent of people pay up, and the other

90 percent have to waste their time and energy fighting the charges, not much happens.

So will I.

The victims -- whether this means the telcos, or the innocent victims who were overbilled -- lose $30M (with no sure knowledge that $30M was the real total of the overbillings).

Farr gives back $500K; apparently does no jail time; and is turned lose with a meaningless ban so that he can, most likely, pursue some other con.

And the telcos who went along with the scam, and the "regulators" who made it possible, presumably get at most a trivial wrist slap, if that.