Review: TRI Utility Cost Reductions — How You Get Refunds
For over 30 years, TRI Utility Cost Reductions has been dedicated to securing refunds for thousands of clients due to errors that have occurred on past phone and utility bills. Its client base consists primarily of medium to large businesses, corporations, manufacturers, hospitals, municipalities, universities and school districts, and focuses on errors involving tariffs, misapplied contractual rates, recurring billing mistakes, unlawful tax charges and database errors.
Here is a general summary of the things you should know:
1) TRI offers a no-lose agreement for its clients — a business model which guarantees clients refunds. TRI works on a contingency basis and if it is unsuccessful in obtaining refunds on your behalf, its services are free. TRI’s fee is 50% of whatever refunds and future savings it can recover. (Future savings are calculated as 24 months into the future.) There is no need to change vendors or change any system configurations. TRI’s sole mission is to insure that clients have been properly charged for the services they have chosen and receive. In effect, clients have nothing to lose.
2) TRI’s staff of auditors are highly specialized and have years of experience isolating billing errors and navigating the sometimes convoluted and intricate claims process which some professionals have labeled “a different world.” During recent years, vendors have become more reluctant in readily approving claims and additional evidence is being required. This time consuming process has prompted more and more corporations and organizations to outsource their auditing function and have their internal staff focus on more traditional business activity. TRI’s chief auditor is a licensed attorney who has an extensive background in tariff law. This is also classifies TRI as a professional service and enables local governments and municipalities to return TRI without the need for a lengthy bidding process.
3) If you haven’t performed an outside audit of your phone and utility bills in the past 6 years, you should have one done immediately. The statue of limitations may reduce the refunds for which you are eligible.
4) TRI obtains refunds for over 87% of its clients. Some clients have received hundreds of dollars back, while others have recovered millions. The largest refund has been $3.7 million. Generally speaking, most refunds are a culmination of several years of recurring monthly errors. For example, a $250 error on a monthly phone bill will result in a refund of $18,000 (72 months x $250.) If that same or similar error has occurred 7 times on other accounts, the total refund would be $126,000. That’s how small mistakes can add up over time.
5) TRI focuses on hundreds of areas that have the potential of recovering the most lucrative refunds, credits and reductions. Here are just a few of the billing areas the auditors analyze where common overcharges occur:
Monthly service charge errors
PRIs / T1s / Digital Data / Fractional T1s / VOIP
Private Line Networks: Off-premise voice extensions / Data / Internet
Analysis of Invoices to contracts
Analysis of Invoices to customer service record (CSR)
Comparison of CSRs to inventory
Duplicate service billing
Circuit services (analog, digital or VOIP) no longer used due to network upgrades
Billing of non-requested or previously disconnected services
Vestiges / Components of former services
Network Utilization
Improper tariff or ICB rates
Centrex Fees
Taxes & Surcharges & E-911 charges — Federal, State & Local
Local, long distance and regional usage fees & rates
Bundles usage & service packages
Toll-Free service
Invoice accuracy
Incorrect meter reading
Faulty meters
Redundant billing charges
Usage or consumption charges
Rates
Tariffs rates & billing platforms
Billing structure
Demand readings
Meter Constants
Estimated billing
6) These days, top management is turning over every stone to find ways to cut costs and become more efficient. Since phone and utility costs are a substantial part of budgets, having an audit done, especially before you make any changes with your vendors or have a business reorganization, is probably the easiest way to get money back and secure permanent cost reductions without the need to change anything.
7) Getting started is easy. TRI has a simple and straightforward one-page agreement form. You will also be asked to provide letters authorization so TRI can get 6 years worth of old phone and utility bills directly from your vendors (so you don’t have to look for them.) You only need to provide one copy of your most recent phone and utility bills, along with any agreements or contracts you have with your vendors. That’s it.
To find out more, we recommend you contact TRI Utility Cost Reductions directly at 716-754-1752 to learn more about the benefits of having a no-lose audit performed on your old phone and utility bills.