Companies who foot the bill for employees’ wireless bills may be paying for much more average wireless business usage. The advent of 3rd party services such as ringtones, games, music downloads, and other “premium content” has provided a huge opportunity for 3rd party providers and also established wireless carriers to increase revenues.

“Many businesses are simply unaware that wireless carriers often act as a “billing agents” for 3rd party content providers”, says Karen Thatcher, CEO of TelCon Associates, a 37 year old telecom auditing firm. “The scary thing is that these 3rd party providers generally do not even need a credit card to start billing for a monthly service. If they have your wireless number, that’s all they usually need to begin charging to an account,” says Thatcher.

As one would expect, the way in which carriers list these charges on a wireless bill are often vague and undefined as well. They often use terms such as “downloaded content”, or “premium messages” to describe everything from ringtones to game downloads.

“The terms carriers use to define these extra charges are vague for one reason only - to make it easier to allow them to slip by the accounts payable department. Monthly recurring charges can be initiated after one purchase or even a free download”, says Thatcher.

The following are a few of tips that will help keep those pesky 3rd party charges off your employee’s cell phone bills.

1) Establish a company-wide wireless policy that outlines the appropriate wireless usage for each employee or job title.

It is highly unlikely that games and ringtone downloads are part of every day business activities. In the event that employees expense wireless bills at the end of every month, be sure that all charges are itemized for easy identification as to the specific charges and purpose for the charges.

2) Contact your wireless carrier to determine the possibility of “blocking” 3rd party downloadable content.

Verizon allows for consumers to block premium SMS content providers from sending or subscribing them to content. AT&T has begun offering controls that will block a wireless phone from being able to purchase any premium content - including ringtones, games and graphics.

3) Audit wireless bills regularly.

“Routinely auditing wireless bills is the key to catching unauthorized charges”, says Thatcher. “It is much easier to remove these kinds of charges when they first appear rather than months down the road.”

4) Inform your carrier about unauthorized charges - then follow up until they are removed.

Wireless carriers have no way of determining whether a charge is legitimate or not - until you tell them. This is where the legwork comes in. Contact your wireless representative and let know of the charges incurred. You may get the run around at first to find a person that can help solve the problem. The key is to be persistent. Be sure to analyze the next bill to be certain that the charge has been removed.