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what a crock of friggin' hooey!

every stinking lowlife and gangbanger will have one of these while the rest of u.s. work ourselves into a dither trying to provide them to our families.

well, i suppose this is but ONE way to keep in touch with the massas and track their every move...

o.t. check this out.

Almost unbelievable. Please tell me this is a hoax?

Out of curiosity, I went on that web site and typed in my zip code. It said I was not in an area that had that service. They only had a few states listed there. Of course, I'm not eligible anyway since I'm so "rich" (since I'm a teacher!!)

Andrea you should try and get fired, have 6 kids with 6 different men, and do your best to get foreclosed on. A world of opportunity would open up for you.

nanc, your kidding me right?

FCC has a website about this government program...

"All telecommunications service providers and certain other providers of telecommunications must contribute to the federal USF based on a percentage of their interstate and international end-user telecommunications revenues. These companies include wireline phone companies, wireless phone companies, paging service companies, and certain Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers.

Some consumers may notice a “Universal Service” line item on their telephone bills. This line item appears when a company chooses to recover its USF contributions directly from its customers by billing them this charge. The FCC does not require this charge to be passed on to customers. Each company makes a business decision about whether and how to assess charges to recover its Universal Service costs. These charges usually appear as a percentage of the consumer’s phone bill. Companies that choose to collect Universal Service fees from their customers cannot collect an amount that exceeds their contribution to the USF. They also cannot collect any fees from a Lifeline program participant."

So.... it looks like the telecommunication providers are paying for this BUT THEY HAVE THE CHOICE to pass that onto the consumers. Anyone wanna bet on how many companies are?

If you've got a "universal service" line on your bill... your provider is making YOU pay for THIER required donation. All above board and perfectly legal.

I contacted them to ask about this and received this reply:

"Funds come from the Universal Service Fund (USF). In accordance with FCC guidelines, the carriers must contribute to these funds. However, there are some carriers that pass the charge to their consumers. There are 3 types of cost under USF:

· High Cost
· Rural Cost
· Low Income Support

TracFone has been designated as an Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC) to provide low income support which in turn allows us to provide Lifeline service to low-income households. Usually the total amount of support from the USF is $10 for each household. There are additional state requirements in which the carriers also must contribute to Lifeline. The average $3.50 but may go as high as $6.00. Each state has its requirement so it will vary.

It is important to note that all carriers that have an ETC designation must provide this service. There is no difference between SafeLink Wireless and other carriers, with the exception that we are wireless and we give our handsets for free at no cost to the consumer. It is also important to stress that we provide the free handset at our cost, not the government. The Federal government only provides the subsidy for the minutes."

Cowlove, well, I guess I could do that, but, see, I'm white, so probably no opportunities would open up for me ....so sad. I have to earn my money the old-fashioned way...by going to my job every day and working hard.

But, it surprised me when I typed in my zip code and it said it wasn't available in my area. I live in south Louisiana....We're crawling with the types of people those ads target.

that previous post was from me, Andrea, but I forgot to type in my name.