Last month, the FCC issued four notices proposing $11.7 million in forfeitures against four smaller telecom companies accused of widespread cramming.

"Cramming happens when a company puts a charge on your phone bill for a service that you never ordered and almost certainly don't need," Joel Gurin, chief of the FCC's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, . "These fake charges can be for services that sound like they're part of your phone service, like long distance service, or they can be for things as diverse as horoscopes, psychic hotlines, or diet plans."

In many cases, telephone carriers offer a service for customers to block third-party charges, but they don't let customers know until they've filed a cramming complaint, Gurin wrote.

The IDG News Service