“FCC tries to prevent cell phone bill shock” |
| FCC tries to prevent cell phone bill shock Posted: 21 Oct 2010 07:01 PM PDT New rules proposed by the Federal Communications Commission would allow customers to know when they have reached their limits on texting and cell phone minutes, so that they will not experience what is called "bill shock," or unexpected charges on their phone bills. According to The New York Times, on Oct. 7 the FCC proposed rules that require mobile phone companies to alert their customers through e-mail, text or some other form when they have reached monthly usage limits. A study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office in November 2009 discovered one in three users of wireless phones and data networks received unexpected charges on bills. "There's two sides to the issue, I think my take would be that we live in a society with such an information glut, way more than we can handle, that we can't take it all in, so it's very easy to not realize that you're going over your limit, and those minutes get very expensive," Stephen Perry, communications professor and coordinator of the mass media program, said. Joseph Blaney, professor of communications, said people radically underestimate their media use in general. "No one wants to think that they are sitting there gabbing all the time and using up all their data, but the fact is that people do underestimate their media use," he said. "This generation is first to become so dependent on these personal communication devices that they may be particularly susceptible to their use of these devices as opposed to older folks," Blaney added. If the proposed rules pass, the companies will also be required to notify their customers when they are about to apply roaming charges or other rates higher than normal. "The charges are often caused by the misunderstanding of contract terms, FCC officials say, rather than fraud on the part of mobile phone companies," the New York Times article said. According to Carolyn Schamberger, spokesperson for Verizon Wireless, the company has a website, called MyVerizon, where customers can check their voice messaging and data meters. "We have a long standing history of being pro-consumer, doing the right thing for our customers, so that they can manage their bills," she said. "We don't want them to experience bill shock either, that's not good for business, so we are going to do whatever we can for customers to understand their bill and manage their usage, that's why we have all these tools in place, the online tool or whether to access information on their hand set," Schamberger added. Sprint currently has the Sprint Plan Optimizer, which is an online tool where usage trends, costs, overage costs and the monthly average usage patterns for voice minutes, text messaging and data can be viewed. Sprint also sends e-mail notifications to new customers when they have reached $10 overage charges and notifications to existing customers when they have reached $20 overage charges. "It's too soon to know exactly what the FCC will decide – all they've agreed to do at this point is take comments from the public. If there are any new regulations, we won't know for sure what they will be until later this year or early next year," Kris Spragg, district manager for Sprint in central Illinois, said. "In the meantime, Sprint will be filing formal comments in the proceeding in the next few weeks," Spragg added. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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