(MONEY Magazine) – Have you ever noticed a rogue $5 calling-card charge from an obscure long-distance company on your phone bill? If so, you're not alone. Over the past three years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has received more than 8,000 complaints about exorbitant phone charges from companies that provide long-distance service to pay phones and telephones in hotel rooms and other public places. Some examples: a $9.58 tab for a two-minute chat from a North Carolina pay phone to neighboring South Carolina and a 40-minute call from a hotel room in Nevada to Washington that cost $63.

The FCC is now offering some relief, though it's leaving much of the burden on consumers. In essence, new FCC rules that take effect on July 1 will mean that those third-party long-distance companies must now offer up-front pricing--that is, a warning that you may be about to rack up a hefty fee.

How does this work? Let's say you charge a pay-phone call on the calling card issued by your local phone company. Now when you dial zero plus the number you are calling, you'll hear a prompt instructing you to press a key or two for an automated rate quote, or you may have to stay on the line for an operator; that's your chance to find out what the charge will be and decide whether to place the call.

Even with this new rule, your best bet is to sidestep an unfamiliar phone's long-distance provider entirely. Instead of hitting zero to charge a call, dial the 800 number on the calling card issued by your own long-distance carrier. AT&T, MCI and Sprint generally charge 30[cents] to 40[cents] a minute for calling-card calls, plus a 30[cents] to 65[cents] surcharge per call, if you have their most popular discount calling plans for your home phone. But MCI, which usually charges 40[cents] for calling-card calls, discounts calls made to your home phone. Those calls are 25[cents] a minute during the day, 10[cents] on evenings and Saturdays and 5[cents] on Sunday.

If you make most of your calls on the road, consider AT&T's One Rate Calling Card Plan, introduced in January. For a $1 monthly fee, you pay 25[cents] a minute on all domestic long-distance calling-card calls and avoid the 65[cents] surcharge.

--K.S.