Cramming (fraud)

Cramming is a form of fraud in which small charges are added to a bill by a third party without the subscriber's consent, approval, authorization or disclosure. These may be disguised as a tax, some other common fee or a bogus service, and may be several dollars or even just a few cents. The crammer's intent is that the subscriber will overlook and ultimately pay these small charges without challenging their legitimacy or inquiring further.

According to the U.S. National Association of Attorneys General, cramming was the 4th most common consumer complaint of 2007 in the United States.

There are various forms of cramming.

Phone cramming is the practice of placing unauthorized charges on a telecommunication subscriber's home or mobile telephone bill.

Cramming is most common in the US, where the breakup of the Bell System left subscribers with different vendors for local and long-distance service. LEC billing consolidated charges from multiple vendors on one bill, but opened an opportunity (which does not exist elsewhere) for fraudulent vendors to add their own charges to the consolidated bills. This is not the same as telephone slamming, where an existing vendor is replaced with a rival without the client's informed consent.

In the UK all the UK mobile operators have a third party direct to bill scheme (chargetomobile 'payforit') controlled by the Payforit Scheme Rules which prevent unauthorised charging.

In the USA an effort to prevent instances of cramming, some members of the third party billing industry have implemented screening and monitoring measures to identify and eliminate crammers. Some companies offer consumer protection websites to help consumers better understand their phone bill and detect cramming as soon as it occurs.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) estimates that cramming has impacted tens of millions of American households.