Just a head's up about another new phenomenon most folks don't even know about until it happens to them. It's called telephone CRAMMING. It pays to look at your bills when they come in and not pay them automatically, even if it means muddling through the encryption some utilities seem to break theirs down into.

What this amounts to is a fee is attached to your phone bill, and looks like part of your bill until you read it closely. It is the phone company being a vehicle for another business to bill you for their goods or services. It's like a credit card bill, without the protection that credit cards give you. IOW a business claims that you owe them money, takes it through a third party who then subscribes with the phone company to plop that charge on your bill. The telephone companies, according to some inet authrorities, are under no obligation to contact you to see if YOU authorised this. They just plop them on. Surprise! And.......many telephone customers are saying they never even heard of some of the companies who claim they've made subscriptions or purchases from them. I'm not naming any names, but suggesting you may want to start looking closely at your statements. Seems to me it's a lleh of a lot easier to get a phone number out of a book than steal a credit card number.