It’s Called Deceptive Price-Gouging
http://www.workinglife.org/2013/05/23/its-called-deceptive-price-gouging/
from the Working Life blog:
It’s Called Deceptive Price-Gouging
Posted on 23 May 2013.
Is there a website for corporate-speak slogans that are simply covers for robbery? Must be. If not, there should be — and AT&T’s “administrative fee” has got to take an honored place on the list.
C’mon, say this with a straight face:
AT&T Inc. has added a new monthly administrative fee of 61 cents to the bills of all of its contract wireless lines as of May 1, a move that could bring in more than a half-billion dollars in annual revenue to the telecom giant.
Other carriers also have so-called “below-the-line” fees, named that because they frequently appear at the bottom of the phone bill after the service charges. Such fees help boost revenue growth in a massive organization, but consumer groups criticize them because they are less likely to be noticed by users and allow carriers to advertise lower prices than they actually charge.
“Below-the-line fees are nothing more than a way for carriers to stealthily increase their prices,” said Derek Turner, research director at Free Press, a public interest group. “AT&T’s administrative fees are no different than the hundreds of other components that go into the cost of doing business,” he said.
“Administrative fee”? No, this is stealth robbery. Dishonest. But, of course, the company will get away with it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
After the scandal-ridden Long Island Lighting Company was dissolved, we got LIPA, National Grid, and a few other entities digging through our pockets to keep the lights on. Here's a sample bill to show how 8.5 cents a kilowatt gives you bill of $175:
Click here for the humorous explanation of the charges:
http://www.lipower.org/residential/account/your-bill.html
Off topic but I was thinking about that yesterday while waiting for a gas pump. 
that has to add up.
Then they make constant adjustments to correct--complicates things and some people probably never really know how much power they actually use.
Why can't they use wording that's easily understandable? Revenue-based PILOTS? What is that, the fees they charge for their corporate aircraft pilots? The more revenue, the more pilots they can have for executives?
Last time my electric bill was "estimated" they just DOUBLED the charges from the prior month. My usage had actually dropped for that period, so it took two months for the credit to be used up completely. Now they want to raise rates again, and they can't even read the damn meter and charge customers accurately. 
