Global Solutions, Inc. - Telecom Auditing

No one tracks how often it happens. But the cost could be big. About 80% of the USA's 120 million wireless users have contracts with monthly minute caps, researcher Yankee Group says. When users exceed caps, they face per-minute charges ranging from 15 cents to 50 cents.

Late roaming bills. It can take 60 days for roaming calls to show up on bills. That's because carriers, who hand off calls to each other, must exchange records before customers get billed.

Former VoiceStream Wireless customer David Hill of Portland, OR, says 93 minutes of roaming calls from November showed up on his January bill. That cost him an extra $27.90 because he went over his 500-minute limit. Hill settled the dispute this year after contacting the Better Business Bureau.

VoiceStream and other carriers warn about billing delays via Web sites and in contracts. "It's an industry wide issue that we really don't have a solution for," says VoiceStream spokeswoman Kim Thompson. Spring PCS and others say they are trying to cut the time it takes to post roaming calls.

The problem could grow. Roaming minutes hit 20.8 million last year, up from 5 billion in 1997, according to the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association.

Billing glitches. They can apply minutes to the wrong month. Carriers ay they are rare, and the Federal Communications Commission lacks recent comprehensive statistics on wireless complaints. But consumer Web sites are filled with customer complaints.

Ann Bolduc of Mechanicsville, MD , sued Cingular Wireless after she was billed in January for 412 minutes of calls made in September, October and November. She faced $123.60 in over-charges because she was charged 30 cents a minute for going beyond her 200-minute monthly limit. Cingular refunded her money. Bolduc's attorney, Daniel Girard, says others face the same risk. "You can have a collection agency breathing down your neck."

Bolduc was among 24,300 customers in the Baltimore-Washington area who were affected by the billing glitch last fall. It has been fixed, but Cingular declines to say how much customers were overcharged. Customers are getting refunds, and the problem has not occurred elsewhere, Cingular says.