California Offers Cellular Bill of Rights

JeremyALogan writes "The Feature has an article about The California Public Utility Commission's approval of the first cellular customer Bill of Rights in the US. The Bill enables consumers to cancel their wireless contracts within 30 days of signing on. It also forces carriers to clearly state their rates as well as critical contract terms in normal size print on their websites (no more fine print). Companies will no longer be able to lump "recovery fees" in with taxes or other government fees on bills." You can imagine the joy with which the cellular companies have meet this prospect. Court challenges will be ensuing soon.

Comments

Mixed Feelings

[UberOogie]

Clearly, this is a great thing for consumers.

On the other hand, I've got to agree with the Governator, if for different reasons. I'm not sure if this is within the power of the commission that did it, for whatever benefit. This kind of power creep is exactly the kind of thing citizens should oppose.

But then again, there is no way that bought and paid for state government would ever pass such consumer protection.

Overall, I'd call it good with reservations.

Re:Mixed Feelings

[back_pages]

I hear ya, but just this weekend I was talking with a friend and wishing that some notoriously sleazy industries would be regulated a little more fairly. I'm not talking about being forced to compete with a government industry, as was done with electricity in the US, but to just clean up some of the sleaziness.

I'm in the process of getting a cell phone for the first time (I've been a college student who enjoys being unreachable) and am also to a big city. I'm trying to order a phone, have it delivered to me, but have it activated with the big city area code and so on. I ordered from a1wireless.com, but they couldn't verify my address. That's odd, because the USPS can, the electric company can, the cable company can, and the bank can. The guy I spoke with about this was a pain in the ass so I told him to cancel the order. He said that it would be done, but I have yet to receive any email from the company that the order was cancelled. I half expect to be billed for a phone that I never receive.

So I shopped around and found a completely different company. Different website, different deals, different name, different "sales pitch" regarding their phones. So I gave them a shot and ordered a phone. This was about 3 hours after I placed the first order. Here's the really sleazy part..

I was unhappy with the customer support at the first company and I wanted to take my business to one of their rivals. I thought that I had done so.. but my second order number is about 300 higher than my first one, ie the order number at one company was (fake) 423501 and my second order number with a "rival" company was 423811. This could be a coincidence, but I strongly suspect that I'll be dealing with the same bad customer support on Tuesday.

It is a sleazy industry. They must make more money by scamming their customers than providing the advertised service. My girlfriend's provider (SunCom) refuses to provide an itemized bill. They just send her a total and expect her to pay it - or pay the ~$150 early cancellation fee. I called SunCom myself and very politely did everything I could to get an itemized bill. After 30 minutes, the woman told me, "After the first bill has been sent to the customer, it contains proprietary information on our computers and therefore we cannot print an itemized bill and send it out, so sorry." I'm not a dope, I don't believe that nonsense, but the fact is that I could get blood from a stone before I could get an itemized bill from SunCom.

If some government somewhere wants to regulate these assholes and enforce a little truth in advertising, I'm all for it. A free market doesn't work well when there's an industrial scam going on, and that's what the cell phone providers have.

Why is it that..

[Ckwop]

big business is never honest? I mean, these provisions are obviously there to help the customer know what product their buying into.

Why do the cell phone companies feel like they need to hide this stuff in small print? People respect a company that is, well, respectable. I'd feel happier to buy a cell if I know *exactly* where i'm going to get charged and how much that charge is.

The cell phone companies should back this clarity.

Simon.

Re:Why is it that..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do the cell phone companies feel like they need to hide this stuff in small print? People respect a company that is, well, respectable. I'd feel happier to buy a cell if I know *exactly* where i'm going to get charged and how much that charge is.

The cell phone companies should back this clarity.

Don't forget, this is the US. Cellular used to be fair, they took a loss on your handset and then recovered it through a year long contract. Later on GSM intruduced the idea of locking the phone so that it would be useless except with a specific carrier. This is where the rift between the US and the rest of the world occurs. Elsewhere in the world, after the cellular company recovered their costs and made some profit they would gladly unlock the handset so you could take it to another carrier if you wished. In the US, this was almost unheard of. In fact, try asking anyone at a retail store about getting this done and 99.99% of the time they'll say it can't be done. The worst part about all of this is that they retained the contracts and have lengthened their times. So you get punished twice, you get a locked phone and you have to sign up for 1-3 years!

Further, if you do managed to unlock your phone, (by hook or by crook) many carriers will refuse to allow it's use with their service! They'd much rather you buy a new phone from them. Then there are the carriers which will allow you to bring in your own handset, but they still want you to sign up for 1-3 years. I've never understood this, there is no loss leader in this situation. They simply enter your information into their system and begin billing you, instant profit from the first bill. (They'll generally want you to pay an "activation fee" $20 for some monkey to enter two numbers along with your billing info?!? That's pure profit!)

Before all of this mess, when you could take your phone to any carrier, the phones were of higher quality because they weren't meant to get thrown away. As an example, look at Motorola handsets of the past. They were far better at receiving signals than the current ones. They were built to last, made of the same plastic used in helmets. They even designed the battery such that if the phone were dropped, it would seperate without breaking it's loking mechanism. You could throw these phones against a brick wall and they'd still work, try that with a modern phone.

Don't forget that all of these re-usable handsets winding up in the trash are bad for the environment. I don't see the environmentalists raising a stink about that, I wonder why?

Used Car Dealers...

[path_man]

Is it just me, or does anyone else ever go into the SprintPCS store feeling like they are visiting a used car dealership? Besides the clientelle that always seem to be there (people arguing about roaming charges, people 90 days past-due on their bill, someone wanting to cancel service because of a divorce, etc.) the staff almost always has this shady look to them.

About the only place I hate worse than the SprintPCS store is the stupid sunglass counter at the mall.

It's about damn time that the government step in to regulate how these kinds of companies do business. This is actually helpful -- and I'd be willing to bet that in the long-term this kind of regulation actually *gasp* helps cellular companies.

Re:Used Car Dealers...

[BigDumbAnimal]

It's about damn time that the government step in to regulate how these kinds of companies do business.

Don't do business with them? Tell your friends?

Suppose your business is the next one the government decides it needs to regulate?

hahaha

[tisme]

I don't understand what the problem is... I just signed up with AT&T and got a FREE $290 flip phone plus six FREE months of UNLIMITED calling, INTERNET access on my phone and all sorts of cool arcade games to play on my cellphone. Yeah they did ask me for my bank account information and two major credit cards but this was only to ensure that I "qualified" for their great free offer. Sure there was a long spiel about rates after the six months but I just plan on cancelling then and looking for another free six months. LET THE SUN SHINE DOWN ON SUCH GREAT OFFERS, THEY MAKE ME FEEL SO SPECIAL. :) :) :)

(j/k of course :P)

Cellular Bill of Rights

[schnits0r]

I hereby declare that my cells have the following rights: 1) The right to undergo mitosis, and, under certain conditions, meiosis. 2) The right to unfettered DNA replication. 3) The right to splice and edit mRNA transcripts without governmental interference. 4) The right to protect themselves from any invading threat, be it bacterial, viral, or merely proteinaceous, using any means that have been made available through evolution. 5) The right to secrete phospholipid bilayers. 6) The right to enclose all genetic material within a nuclear envelope.

Re:Cellular Bill of Rights

[Timesprout]

he right to secrete phospholipid bilayers. 6) The right to enclose all genetic material within a nuclear envelope

Dear schnits0r,

We read your post on /. with interest because it contained the words secret(e) and nuclear in close proximity. Given this and the haxxor spelling of your name has forced us to increase your terrorist quotient by a metric shitload.

Our inspectors will be around shortly to dig you up/apart to search for the WMD you refer to in your post.

Yours etc.
The Pentagon.

What is the big deal?

[ZPO]

In general they have done 3 things:

1 - Provide a standard 30-day out if the service is sub-par.

2 - Require transparent billing so that consumers are told all the additional fees that will raise the real cost of their mobile bills.

3 - Make sure the contract language is legible.

It creates a level playing field for all vendors and doesn't favor one over another. I don't see what the mobile providers have to complain about.

Re:Lazy Consumer

[JadeNB]

1. Read every contract you sign, even the fine print, even the one at Blockbuster Video. The folks in line behind you can deal with it and might learn something.

I was brought up well and have always made this a practice. You can imagine my shock when, upon asking Verizon for a copy of the cell phone contract before I signed (on one of those loathsome electronic signing-pads), I was told that the system was set up so that they couldn't print out a copy until I signed!

Not a power creep.

[El Camino SS]

On the other hand, I've got to agree with the Governator, if for different reasons. I'm not sure if this is within the power of the commission that did it, for whatever benefit. This kind of power creep is exactly the kind of thing citizens should oppose.



Yeah, but currently the power creep is from the cell phone companies. These restrictions look more like lemon laws than anything.

Ask yourself this: What if you bought a cell with a contract that said it had essential coverage, and it didn't (as often cell companies do)? What if you got crappy reception at your own home even though it clearly says that you are clearly in the footprint? What could you do?

The answer? NOTHING FOR A YEAR. Buy another contract and pray. Smells like bull to me.

Long, long ago in the United States, things such as electrical power, natural gas lines, phone service, and other major mass entities were declared utilities.

Cell phones, through daily use, are becoming more and more important to daily life, and although we have lived without them, we have also lived without electricity as well... so don't even argue that right now. Currently due to tricks that the entire industry uses, they are continuing to charge the same rates for an older technology that is more ubiquitous. The value and cost of cell is dropping. The prices are not. Does that sound like good trade to you? Cell phones, under certain circumstances should be regulated like any other utility, due to the fact that they are a necessity, and they are currently price gouging.

Simply put, if everyone makes you sign up for a year, then you are screwed. The power company CAN'T do that. The POTS phone company cannot do that to you. They are regulated. Granted they are regulated monopolies, but at the same time, if there are only a few major cell carriers left in a few years, you are in the same boat.

Yes, there are alternatives. You can buy cell packages in all different manners. However, if you want one with good coverage outside of an urban market where altrernatives are plentiful, you not only have to pay, and most likely you have to be restricted by contracts.

It is a service. You pay for it. All of the air conditioning services don't come over and tell you that you need to sign a year contract and pay whether you use your A/C or not. The plumber doesn't make you sign a contract. There is no fine print in a plumber. There is no automatic withdrawl, or shady account management.

These days cell telephones are important for the succesful completion of the vast majority of business tasks. Collusion, or restriction of cell phone services by the way of binding contracts or other such behaviors should be considered predatory practice, and it ultimately restricts free trade.

That is why you need some slight regulation. After all, this isn't price restricting... it just sounds like cell phone lemon laws.

Contracts of Adhesion

[Detritus]

The problem is that the consumer is rarely in a position to negotiate a contract. It's take it or leave it. Go to the competition, if any, and you find that the objectionable parts of the contract are considered "standard industry practices", and are present in everyone's contract. That's why we have truth in lending laws, lemon laws, warranty laws and other laws that impose standards on the marketplace.

Hidden fees should be illegal for all services

[bigmattana]

Speaking of making the "recovery fee" for cell phones part of the regular monthly charge, instead of an "add-on", I think this should be true of e everything. I get so tired of agreeing to some service for a particular price, and being charge extra fees after the initial agreement. I don't care what expenses my local oil change place needs to pay for "shop fees" or "oil disposal", I should know exactly what I will be paying before I make a verbal agreement to have my oil change. I can think of a million other things in which this could apply.