As longtime readers know, I think the cellphone industry is one step away from a big-city mugger. Some of their practices are outrageous ripoffs-like how they charge so much for text messages (both the sender and the receiver), even though text messages cost them nothing. Or how the purpose of two-year contract is to sell you an expensive phone cheaply, on the premise that you'll pay it off over the next 24 months -- but once you've paid off the phone, your monthly bill doesn't go down. (Except at T-Mobile.)

A few months ago, I wrote about Verizon Wireless's outrageous practice of selling phones whose arrow keys are preprogrammed to connect to the Web -- and if you hit one accidentally, you get zapped with a $2 Internet charge, instantly.

After much outcry and even an FCC investigation, Verizon Wireless installed a "landing page" -- a page on the phone that lets you cancel before you incur the charge. But plenty of people still find those mysterious $2 charges. If you truly never use Internet features, you can call Verizon to request a "data block" -- to say, "I just don't use the Internet on my phone, and I don't want to run the risk of getting hit with those $2 charges."

Last month, I heard from a customer-service rep who, despite working for Verizon Wireless, is on my side on this issue. He wrote with two alarming internal developments at Verizon that could affect you:

"Effective this past month, all CSRs [customer-service reps} were versed on the usage of blocks. A new policy has gone into effect regarding how to handle Escalated Calls regarding data charges. Now, a representative can be reprimanded and even terminated for proactively offering to block any of the following:

Web Access Blocks

Data Blocks

Premium SMS blocking

Application download blocking

Vcast Music or Vcast Video download blocks

"Essentially, we are to upsell customers on the $9.99 25mb/month or $29.99 unlimited packages for customers. Customers are not to be credited for charges unless they ask for the credit. And in cases such as data or premium SMS, where the occurrences may have gone months without the consumer noticing, only an initial credit can be issued."