In what seems a ludicrous situation in this day and age of computer record/book keeping, it seems the FCC are no longer bothering to count the amount it is handing out from your wallet.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20081201-fcc-usf-telcos-received-over-970-million-in-erroneous-payments.htmlA key program in the Federal Communications Commission's Universal Service Fund overpaid telecommunications carriers by almost a billion dollars from July 2006 through June 2007. This disclosure, which is sure to provoke more cries for a massive overhaul of the USF, comes from a preliminary FCC audit of the USF's High Cost fund released just before Thanksgiving. The review says that 23.3% of the payments the USF made to telcos were "erroneous"—that's up from an earlier estimate of 16.6 percent. The latest total comes to $970.3 million in bad payouts.
The Commission says that this money cannot be recovered, because it is based on a random sample audit of USF beneficiaries.
The USF's High Cost fund helps make phone service more affordable in rural or low income areas through direct financial support to phone carriers in those regions; they tap into the system to recover some of their operating costs.
Well whats nine hundred and thirty million dollars between friends...
