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removed, but that the wireless provider investigate how many times these charges had appeared on previous bills and credit those charges to his account as well. He wasn't going to pay his bill until the situation was rectified. Turns out, he didn't need to.

What Figure 1 shows is that the abusive billing practice had recurred for at least eight months, and that the state and local tax authorities grabbed their own piece of the action along the way. The CSP agreed immediately upon request to apply credits to the customer's bill. Not only didn't the customer owe the CSP any money, the CSP ended up in the hole, owing the customer a $14.41 credit. The customer walked away feeling pretty good about the online service, and extremely wary of his carrier's questionable billing practices.

Here's where the side effects come into play. First, with random charges showing up on bills, it only exacerbates what's already a massive problem. Industry studies generally show that more than 70 percent of all calls to contact centers are the result of rate plan confusion and billing disputes. Each call costs the carrier somewhere in the neighborhood of $8, adding up to billions in call center expense each year across wireless sector alone.

Billing and rate plan problems are also among the leading causes of customer churn. Churn is the largest and most punishing cost every wireless carrier battles. The very best of them loses one customer for every two it acquires. Allowing every thug with a shady business model to treat customers like rubes will only drive these killer costs up. The thugs don't pay the freight – CSPs, and their customers do.

Further, if we as consumers aren't protected within the context of the trusted billing relationship we aren't going to trust our CSPs. If we have to call contact centers to fix problems that shouldn't have occurred in the first place, we'll be increasingly dissatisfied. (Check out the latest customer satisfaction ratings for the wireless industry on J.D. Power's website; they're similar to George W. Bush's approval rating.) Given the number of pending class action lawsuits regarding early termination fees, the consumer-wireless carrier relationship is clearly strained. Personalized content should become an opportunity to give consumers what we want; to make us happy as we are blissfully absorbed in our beloved mobile devices. It might be high time for all wireless carriers to find some ethics along the road to getting rich.