Ooma Forums

Regulatory Compliance Fee:$1.78
911 Service Fee: $1.59
Federal Universal Service Charge: $0.39
State and local taxes, fees and surcharges
•Jefferson county 911: $3.15
•Birmingham city 911: $2.68

Total: $9.59

ouch12 wrote:Regulatory Compliance Fee:$1.78
911 Service Fee: $1.59
Federal Universal Service Charge: $0.39
State and local taxes, fees and surcharges
•Jefferson county 911: $3.15
•Birmingham city 911: $2.68

Total: $9.59

Wow! If the County and City 911 fees are accurate, your local governments are really giving it to people from behind!

All the Ooma folks in the same city would be paying the same amount.

Check out your cell phone bill, these county and city 911 fee amounts should show up there too.

Here is the Ooma monthly tax for my zip:

Regulatory Compliance Fee $1.78
911 Service Fee $1.59
Federal Universal Service Charge $0.39
State and local taxes, fees and surcharges
WA state 911 $0.25
King county 911 $0.70

Total: $4.71

The County and State 911 amounts show up in my cell phone bill too; precisely the same amounts.

COUNTY 911 SERVICE FEE $0.70
State 911 Service Fee $0.25

Of course in my cell bill, there are also Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge, Federal Universal Service Charge as well but additionally, there are State Telecom Tax, City Telecom Tax, and City District Telecom Tax making the total a lot more than Ooma's monthly amount.

Well, mine have gone up from $3.47 to $8.05. That's an increase of 130% Wow! Something seems wrong.

FYI, I have 911 service fee ($1.59), City 911 charge ($1.25) and County 911 charge ($2.50). $5.34 for 911 alone. Seriously???

Take a look at your cell bill, those exact amounts for county and city would show up.

I urge everyone to carefully examine the 911 charges on their bill. My bill increased this year and I did not look as closely as I should have. What I found is that I now have 2 charges for 911 whereas I only had one before. Worse yet one of the charges is for a city where I don't live! Part of the problem is that my 80015 zip code overlaps two cities and an area not in either city. It appears I am being charged for 911 in both cities - $1.59 for Aurora, CO where I don't live or receive services, and $0.70 for Centennial where I do live. Furthermore, the charge for Centennial is almost double what it should be. Check your cell phone bill and what the 911 fee is for a landline. I looked at my old landline bill (and a neighbor's) and a current cell phone bill and both charge 43 cents for 911, not the 70 cents Ooma is charging. I have contacted Ooma and requested my 911 fee be lowered to 43 cents and a refund issued for all overcharges. They are "investigating".

lbmofo wrote:Take a look at your cell bill, those exact amounts for county and city would show up.

I guess I need to qualify this...if your cell phone number is in the same city as the Ooma number. This brings up another point in that I think Ooma has only 1 set of RRF (monthly taxes) per Ooma account so the amounts showing up should be relative to the city your primary number is in (you should not get hit with city/county 911 for the 2ndary, tertiary, quaternary, quinary etc. numbers in your Ooma account is my guess, or would you?).

I think it's horrible that cities & counties get to charge itemized 911 surcharges.. it should be all part of the same system.. just wrap it into one charge already and standarize it.

IMO, the 911 surcharges should be calculated directly by the serving address you have on file.. and not by the number! They are responsible for the calls and emergency services! Cities, counties & towns should not be able to double/triple dip on this as it seems a case of price gouging. Seriously, is your money actually going to serve YOUR 911 system or someone elses?!? It's confusing... and in some cases could drive away subscribers from Ooma. Over $3.50 for the 911 charges alone is way too high... at this rate, I'd want to call them everyday and talk for an hour... to get my $3.50 worth, lol. Voip should not be a piggy bank for taxes & fees.