Georgia Targets Obamaphone Fraud

The Peach State’s reform attempt should earn national attention.

The telltale signs of fraud and abuse lurk unseen in many a spreadsheet, and it takes a skeptic to hunt them down and bring them to light. In Georgia, the numbers for the Lifeline subsidized-phone program weren’t adding up, so one state official decided to act.

“We had 125 percent more [subsidized] phones out there than we had people who could qualify. By my estimates, at least 300,000 to 400,000 of the phones [distributed in Georgia] were fraudulent,” says Georgia public-service commissioner Doug Everett. “Since the FCC was not doing anything about it, I figured maybe we could do something on the state level.”

In a 3–2 vote last month, Georgia’s Public Service Commission passed Everett’s proposed measure, so beginning in January, the state will require phone companies to charge Lifeline beneficiaries $5 a month. For a cell phone with 250 minutes and 250 texts a month, that’s still a pretty good deal — unless, of course, you’re accustomed to getting the same for nothing at all.

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