Last summer, the Cleveland Plain Dealer noticed that Verizon was charging wireless customers a bizarre $1.99 fee for "data," even when customers phones were off, had dead batteries, had data services blocked, or the phone didn't even have data capabilities. Verizon promised to fix the problem, and the article was largely ignored. In November, the New York Times again covered the phantom fee, this time citing an anonymous Verizon insider who claimed Verizon was fully aware of the glitch, but was intentionally doing nothing about it -- given it generated millions in annual additional revenue.

The Times article got the FCC's attention, and the agency sent Verizon a letter, asking them what was going on. Verizon's response? They denied the problems were happening. When asked specifically how they could deny the problem when thousands of customers and several papers were busy experiencing it first hand, an employee acknowledged it, and the company has even given refunds for it -- Verizon wouldn't really comment.

While at least one FCC Commissioner called Verizon's non-response "troubling," nothing's really happened since.

Coming back full circle, Teresa Dixon Murray of the Cleveland Plain Dealer (whose original good work on the fee was completely ignored) is back again with an article about the fee. Guess what? Murray's still experiencing the fee first hand. After "meeting with several top executives," having data access on the phone blocked, and six months of complaints, she's still fighting the fee:Verizon's problem with accurate billing (on both the landline and wireless sides) are legendary, and hardly ever are they in their customers' favor. As Murray notes, you can fill out this FCC form and e-mail the FCC to let them know Verizon's non-existent fee is still consuming your very real money.