Woman Hoards 30 Government Life Line Phones Or Obama Phones

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[Woman Hoards 30 Government Life Line Phones Or Obama Phones]

[Reporter]
You may have noticed vans across the city of Baltimore promoting free cell phones. It’s a program that you are helping to pay for.

[Reporter]
Tonight, we look at a Federal program that has gotten completely out of control, not just here in Baltimore, but across the country. Here’s tonight’s cover story now, Free Phone Frenzy.

Monique Crawford: Source: LYBIO.net
I have another one in my pocket too.

[Reporter]
Baltimore city resident Monique Crawford has plenty of cellphones.

Monique Crawford:
I have more like six in my purse now.

[Reporter]
And a few more at home.

Monique Crawford:
Each and every one of these phones were – at home, I have – no, I have thirty and all are my own.

[Reporter]
But how did she manage to amass such a cellular jackpot?

[Reporter]
How long did it take you to get all these phones?

Monique Crawford: Source: LYBIO.net
Five, ten minutes to get this one. Just now I walked out with this one. Just now.

[Reporter]
Well, partly thanks to you. That’s because anyone who pays a cellphone bill also subsidies the phones filling up Monique’s purse. Courtesy of a charge buried in your monthly bill called a Universal Access Fee.

Tim Griffin:
And if you wonder where this money comes from, take out your cellphone bill and look at that line that says Universal Service Fund.

[Reporter]
Money that funds the program called Lifeline originally intended to ensure everyone has access to a landline phone, and 911 emergency service.

Tim Griffin:
It’s clearly not what the law was originally intended.

[Reporter]
But has since evolved into something entirely different, say people whoever used it. Private prepaid cellphone companies are now giving away phones to people in Baltimore and dozens of other cities, who receive government aid all paid for by you.

[Unidentified]
There is too many of them, they are more of a problem than really a help to these people.

[Reporter]
In Baltimore city, this man whose identity we protected, says, the program has made the free phone so easy to get that people occasionally are now selling them sometimes to drug dealers.

[Unidentified] Source: LYBIO.net
I mean a drug dealer is not going to stay in a line, wait for a phone, he’s got a phone, but if there is somebody who goes in line and gets it, he will pick up an extra phone.

[Reporter]
Indeed the number showed just how everywhere they are. In Maryland, the number of Lifeline beneficiaries has bloomed from 6,000 subscribers in 2008 to 231,000 in 2011, a jump that is up the costs from less than $1 million a year to $24 million last year.

Tim Griffin:
Well, a few years ago, someone had the idea that, hey, we ought to convert it or also allow in addition to landlines, why not allow cellphones, and that’s when this thing just got out of control.

[Reporter]
That’s why Arkansas congressmen Tim Griffin is sponsoring legislation that would eliminate free cellphones from the Lifeline program.

Tim Griffin:
If we can’t cut this, then we are in big, big trouble when it comes to cutting other wasteful spending because this is easy.

[Reporter]
The FCC is also trying to crack down. Last year, they searched the database looking for people who had received more than one phone. They fund over a 1/4 of a million cases, but rating in the flow of free cellphones will not be easy. We asked a worker at a location getting away phones, if they check to see if applicants already received a free phone and the employee told us, yes.

[Reporter] Source: LYBIO.net
Can people get multiple phones?

[Citizen]
No.

[Reporter]
But according to Crawford, controls are incredibly less.

Monique Crawford
I could go to the same way tomorrow and get another phone.

[Reporter]
It’s a disconnect that both people in Baltimore.

[Citizen]
Not everybody do the right thing.

[Reporter]
And members of our U.S. Congress.

Tim Griffin:
Where does it end?

[Reporter] Source: LYBIO.net
Want to change.

Woman Hoards 30 Government Life Line Phones Or Obama Phones. Anyone who pays a cellphone bill also subsidies the phones filling up Monique’s purse. Courtesy of a charge buried in your monthly bill called a Universal Access Fee. Complete Full Transcript, Dialogue, Remarks, Saying, Quotes, Words And Text.