The Federal Communications Commission yesterday accused five wireless service providers of obtaining duplicate payments from a federal fund for low-income consumers. The FCC wants the companies to repay the extra money and, in addition, to pay $14.4 million in fines.

The wireless providers allegedly violated rules of the Lifeline program, which has helped people afford basic telephone service since 1985. It was expanded to cover pre-paid cell phone service in 2005 under former President George W. Bush.

"The violations involve thousands of consumers who had more than one Lifeline subscription from the same provider, resulting in duplicative support requests and payments," the FCC said. "In each case, the carrier knew or should have known, based on its own internal data, that the consumers were ineligible under Lifeline program rules. ... To protect the integrity of the Lifeline program, the Commission’s rules prohibit, among other things, Lifeline service providers from requesting and/or receiving support for consumers who already receive Lifeline service."

The proposed fines are as follows: $4,806,381 for Icon Telecom; $4,573,376 for TracFone Wireless, Inc.; $2,203,977 for Assist Wireless, LLC; $1,586,545 for Easy Telephone Services d/b/a/ Easy Wireless; and $1,234,456 for UTPhone, Inc.

The companies were each issued a "Notice of Apparent Liability (NAL)," and have the right to appeal the decision.

The fines are calculated according to a framework allowing for "(1) a separate forfeiture of $20,000 for each unlawful payment request seeking USF (Universal Service Fund) support for ineligible Lifeline subscribers; (2) a $5,000 forfeiture per ineligible subscriber; and (3) an upward adjustment of three times the total duplicate USF support payments requested and/or received," the FCC said.

"The fines in these cases are purposely large," Acting FCC Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn said in a statement accompanying the decision. "However, I want to ensure adequate deterrence without harming the legitimate service these providers bring to their subscribers. Accordingly, I have instructed the Enforcement Bureau to carefully consider the companies’ responses to these NALs."

The commission has been overhauling the Lifeline program since 2010, resulting in the elimination of 1.1 million duplicate subscriptions and savings of $2 billion over three years.

In case you were wondering, the FCC announced its decision just before the government shutdown last night. The commission's website is now offline.

UPDATE: TracFone has told Ars that the disputed charges involve "less than $8,000" and fewer than 850 people out of a total of 4 million Lifeline customers.

“We will respond to the FCC at the appropriate time," a TracFone statement said. "However, we do not believe that our conduct violated any rules or that the proposed FCC action is warranted. We believe that we have the most sound program in the industry when it comes to wireless Lifeline. TracFone has been a leader in both innovative wireless Lifeline services and in preventing program abuses. We have proposed many reforms to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse of Universal Service Fund resources. Some of those proposals were included in the FCC’s 2012 Lifeline rules. And TracFone continues to propose additional fraud prevention measures, including a ban on in-person distribution of handsets associated with Lifeline services. Our goal at TracFone Wireless has always been to do whatever it takes to clear up any such issues as expeditiously as possible. We will have no additional statement on this matter until we submit our response to the FCC.”