Dr. Z has received emails on some disturbing situations that have occurred in recent weeks in the VRS industry and as a deaf person he is concerned about such practices as they prey on vulnerable persons in our community. Slamming is a practice that the FCC does not condone and the FCC has fined some phone companies in the past who have violated FCC regulations on slamming. In our community, those situations that have come to Dr. Z’s attention are close to what is “slamming”–using a assumed signed letter of authorization as a way to say one wants to transfer their number when the deaf person in fact didn’t sign one. While this is not “slamming” per se, it leads to this situation and Dr. Z is upset about this.

In addition, some VRS carriers have asked deaf people to port their numbers back because the companies “own” the number. The fact of the matter is the consumer decides where the number should be assigned to whatever phone he/she wants it assigned.

It is Dr. Z’s sincere hope that this is a wake-up call to the industry.

Dr. Z cares about your communication access.

Disclosure: Dr. Z is a contractor working with CSDVRS on several projects.