Welp, if you think time billing is fraud, good luck going after the lawyer that's charging you in hour increments for two-minute phone calls. Three short calls in half an hour? That's three billable hours. Whether you think it's fraud is irrelevant - the law does not, because the people that are in the business of law make a lot of money from that being the case.

"Time theft" only exists for employees. This is by design to protect wealth, like most laws regarding money. It's not fraud to bill for a made-up amount of time, it's literally how all time billing except for employee wages is done. Only "wage earners" are paid by the minute. Some employers actually calculate down to the six second interval (tenth of a minute). Meanwhile, the overnight parking garage gets to round up to the nearest four hour increment. Who's really "committing" anything here - the lady getting her job done quickly, or the folks claiming they overpaid after the job is done?