Free Cellphone Program Exhausting Area Code (405) Phone Numbers
Abuse Concerns Grow on Phone Aid for Poor - WSJ.com
This Wall Street Journal story focuses on the "Lifeline" program, one intended to provide subsidized phone service for the poor. Unfortunately it's quickly grown out of control and appears to be rife with abuse. Unfortunately, Oklahoma was the topic of the story because the fraud here is so rampant that the 405 area code is expected to soon run out of phone numbers. The lead:
Regulators looking into the burgeoning federal program to provide subsidized phone service for the poor are finding growing cause for concern.
Last year, the government spent an estimated $2.2 billion on the Lifeline program, up from $819 million four years earlier, as dozens of small companies were authorized to start providing the service.
Now, inquiries in states from Alaska to Florida are raising questions about the source of that growth, according to a review of documents in federal and state investigations.
Investigators say they have turned up some unorthodox tactics by companies participating in the program, such as signing up customers in hospital rooms and enrolling subscribers by mailing them unsolicited phones. In other cases they have uncovered more straightforward attempts to sign up ineligible customers, according to federal and state documents.
While the inquiries have touched only a small number of the dozens of companies that provide the wireless service, they reflect regulators' growing concern that a program aimed at ensuring people have the ability to call their families, jobs or for emergency help has got out of hand as the number of companies providing the service has exploded.
"Waste and fraud in this vital program are simply unacceptable," said Federal Communications Commission spokeswoman Tammy Sun.
In one of the most recent inquiries, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission is reviewing providers of that state's Lifeline program, which is growing so fast that a telecom administrator says the state is likely to exhaust the supply of phone numbers in the 405 area code sooner than expected.
This month, the Oklahoma commission's staff sent show-cause letters to five carriers approved to participate in the program—TerraCom Inc., True Wireless Inc., Assist Wireless, Easy Telephone Services Co. and Icon Telecom Inc.—saying they suspect they have signed up ineligible customers. Copies of the letters were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
True Wireless received about $46 million under the program in 2012, according to one letter. In the letter, the staff questioned whether legitimately signing up so many subscribers was mathematically possible, and said a preliminary review of the company's subscriber list indicated some customers had signed up multiple times in violation of federal rules.
"A statistical calculation…appears to indicate True Wireless is servicing an unrealistic number of customers in the state of Oklahoma," the staff wrote.
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Originally Posted by venture79
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