The Iowa Attorney General’s Office is warning consumers about incidents of “cramming” on cellular phone bills. Officials say if a mysterious unauthorized charge appears on your wireless phone bill—like a monthly horoscope, a “premium service” or membership—you may have been “crammed.”

According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), cramming occurs when a company adds a charge to your landline or wireless phone bill for a service you didn’t order, agree to, or use.  For years, landline users have filed complaints about cramming.  More recently, wireless phone users have reported relatively small charges appearing on monthly cell phone bills—often from under a dollar to under $10—for services that they didn’t order.  They may be one-time charges or monthly fees.

Protect Yourself from Cramming

·       Check your monthly wireless phone bill.  Spending just a little time checking your monthly bill, line-by-line, is the very best way to protect yourself from cramming.  If you pay through automatic billing, it’s even more important to look over your wireless phone bill.

·       Look for unauthorized charges.  Look for third party charges that you didn’t authorize and charges that appear to be unusual or have vague titles.  For example, look for “membership” fees, unusual “service” or “voice mail” fees, charges through a 900 number, or even charges for entertainment services or horoscopes.

·       Call your wireless carrier if you’re unsure about a charge—even a small one.  Your wireless carrier should be able to explain all charges on your bill, whether it’s their charge or from a third party.

·       Ask your carrier about blocking third-party charges.  See if your carrier offers blocking options.

·       Dispute unauthorized charges.  If you detect an unauthorized charge, notify your carrier.  Follow up with an email or certified letter, and save a copy of the complaint and certified letter receipt for your records.

·       Avoid providing your wireless number in exchange for “freebies.”  Crammers may lure unsuspecting consumers through websites that promise freebies.  When consumers provide their cell phone number, they may unwittingly sign up for a monthly membership or subscription fee.  Avoid providing your cell phone number to online giveaways, sweepstakes, contest entries, and surveys.  If you do provide your number, be sure you’re familiar with the company collecting the information.

·       Unsolicited text messages can lead to unauthorized charges.  Unsolicited or “spam” text messages, which could be associated with contests, sweepstakes, ringtones, or other services, generally urge the recipient to reply—and sometimes even direct the recipient to reply with the word “stop” to avoid incurring monthly charges.  Before attempting to stop the messages through replying, call your wireless carrier to verify that doing so will actually stop the texts and any associated crammed charges.

·       Avoid calls to “toll-free” entertainment lines.  Many of these numbers may transfer your call to a 900-number, which will result in charges to your phone bill.  The call could also result in your automatic enrollment in a monthly “membership” charged to your phone bill.

·       Crammers can also sneak in through downloads, apps and clicked ads.  The beautiful free smartphone background picture, the fun free app you can download, and some clicked advertisements may result in unauthorized charges.  A company may disclose the charges, but it’s often buried in fine print that few people read or understand.

To file a complaint or for more information, contact the Iowa Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division, Hoover Bldg., Des Moines, IA 50319.  Call 515-281-5926, or (toll-free) 888-777-4590.  The website is: www.IowaAttorneyGeneral.gov.

A tractor-trailer driver from North Carolina was injured when the semi he was driving went out of control this (Tuesday) morning in Pottawattamie County. The Iowa State Patrol says 37-year old Timothy Dillard, of Rose Hill, NC, was transported by Neola Fire and Rescue to Mercy Hospital in Council Bluffs, after the rig, owned by Gale Marie Werner trucking out of Stillwater, MN, went out of control at around 8-a.m. on Interstate 80 eastbound near the 28-mile marker.

Officials say the 2012 Kenworth jackknifed on the wet pavement and entered the south ditch before coming to rest on the shoulder of the road. The left side fuel tank was punctured during the accident, causing diesel fuel to spill into the ditch. Officials with the Iowa DNR were called-in to investigate the spill.

Authorities in Harlan are investigating recent residential thefts. On Monday, officers were called to a home in the 1700 block of 6th Street, after a resident reported someone may have broken into the back door of her home. Nothing appeared to have been missing. On May 31st, another Harlan resident reported he had returned home to find his front door unlocked, and some video game equipment, games and dvds missing. Included among the missing gaming electronics, was an X-Box 360, and a PlayStation 2. Both incidents remain under investigation.

And the Harlan P-D reports the arrest on May 31st, of 32-year old Daniel Pash, and 37-year old Amanda Hanover, both of Harlan. The pair were arrested on active Shelby County warrants, and were transported to the Shelby County Jail.

FORT DODGE, Iowa (AP) – A woman who says she was kidnapped by a northwest Iowa man also accused of killing his mother has testified in his murder trial.  The Messenger in Fort Dodge reports Jessica Vega, of Storm Lake, testified to a Webster County jury Tuesday after opening statements in the trial of 21-year-old Kirk Levin.
 
The 21-year-old Vega said Levin showed up at her home on the morning of Jan. 3 and asked her to drive to nearby Early. She said he later told her she was being kidnapped and tied her up with a rope.  Vega said she was able to escape when Levin drove the car into a ditch.
 
Levin is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Marilyn Schmitt. He also faces a third-degree kidnapping charge.

The Harlan Police Department reports four teens were charged in connection with an incident of criminal mischief last week. Officials say Harlan resident Nathan McClaren reported to police several young persons had dumped a can of tuna underneath the driver’s seat of his 2002 Oldsmobile Alero. Authorites cited 17-year old Catherine Schmitz, of Harlan, with Criminal Mischief in the 4th degree. 16-year old Colin Fuhs, of Portsmouth was cited for joint Criminal Conduct. 18-year old Haley Miller, and 17-year old Shelby Powers, both of Harlan, were charged with aiding and abetting in connection with the incident.

The state’s largest utility company has completed its nuclear feasibility study and decided to not move to the next stage and pursue a new nuclear plant in Iowa. The study began in 2010 to find out if there were viable sites in Iowa for nuclear plants, the safety of new nuclear technology, and the cost of building new plants compared to natural gas plants. MidAmerican vice president of regulatory affairs, Dean Crist, says the study answered all of the questions.“We did find viable sites in Iowa, the most highly-ranked sites — one was in Fremont County, one was in Muscatine County — so we did answer that question for the state. Also, in looking at the new technology, it looks like the new technology is safer than the current technology and it has a lot of aspects to it that would lend itself to be in a good baseload plan,”according to Crist.  

He says they also found a nuclear plant could compete with a natural gas plant if a carbon tax is in place. Crist says they looked at all those factors in deciding whether to take the next step.”What we chose to do at the end here is to pause while environmental regulations take on more certainty — so we know what those are — natural gas prices, those sort of things. We feel it is appropriate to end the study now and not continue on with further development at this time,” Crist says. Crist says it will likely be several years before the company makes any decision on building either a new natural gas or nuclear plant.

The legislation approving the study allowed MidAmerican to collect money from customers to fund the study. Crist says the decision they have made will mean a refund to customers. They will begin refunding of eight-point-eight million of the over 14-million dollars in funding collected beginning in August of this year and running through July of next year. Crist says the study itself generated a lot of comments from Muscatine and Fremont counties that were both positive and negative about locating a nuclear plant in those areas. But he says those did not factor into their decision, as they stuck with answering the three questions about feasibility.

“Certainly appreciate everyone that provided comments, in the end the assessment answered those three questions and did get into further analysis of how acceptable a community might be to a plant. That would be in further analysis if you would proceed to construct a plant,” Crist says.The company will not buy any land in Iowa at this time to develop a nuclear generation facility, and MidAmerican Energy will let land options it had in Fremont County expire.

(Radio Iowa)

The Supervisors in Shelby County have announced the county is now debt free. In a regular board meeting this (Tuesday) morning, the Supervisors approved to pay off a bond issue that was used for road grating on the dairy road in the county. The remaining debt was $710,000 and the county has been receiving tax fund from the dairy and put it in the Tax Implement Fund (TIF). The county taxed the maximum and took the extra to pay off the bond early.

Shelby County Auditor Marsha Carter said during the meeting, the TIF wasn’t quite enough to pay off the whole balance of the bond so part of the payment comes from the general fund. However, the County will still receive tax money from the dairy to pay back the general funds. Slightly more than $183,584 out of the general fund will be repaid in around a year and half. The Supervisors actually saved the county $72,425 in interest paid to the bond issue. Supervisor Roger Schmitz called it “A good day for the County.”

In other business, Warren Andrew from Andrew Tuckpointing gave a presentation on the work scheduled for later this year on the Shelby County Courthouse. Last year, Andrew’s crew worked on the east side of the square replacing stones and making other improvements. This year, the county is looking to work on the west side of the building to tuckpoint and replace even more stones. Andrew told the Supervisors the project would include power washing, tuckpointing the mortars and caulking. The Supervisors approved the project with a limit of not exceeding $50,000.

The project on the Shelby County Courthouse will start sometime in the fall after all activities have commenced on the square in Harlan.

(Joel McCall/KNOD)