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FCC Inquires About Controversial Verizon Fees
olsmeister writes "As previously noted here on Slashdot, Verizon Wireless has been increasing their early termination fees and actively charging non-data customers who accidentally press the wrong button and go online. The FCC has now sent them a letter asking why. The PDF of the letter can be viewed online. Maybe someone at the FCC does read Slashdot."
Maybe someone at the FCC does read Slashdot
Or they read New York Times, which Slashdot quoted in the said article.
Letters aren't going to do a damn thing to stop the abuses of the communication corporations.
Makes me glad I have AT&T. Although, having FCC care about the little man is interesting makes me wonder why they care.
Is to protect the people. I believe protecting us from getting screwed by gigantic corporations is just as valid as protecting us from invasion.
The FCC gave Verizon two weeks to reply. And when a government entity or a large company sends someone a letter as serious as this, it usually has a statement to the effect "We'll take your silence to imply refusal to cooperate. If push comes to shove, we will take it to court."
I just came a little while reading that letter. Some of the questions are worded in such a deliciously "we're going to screw you to the wall" manner... I'm starting to like the FCC more and more.
weinersmith
subject.
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
What's funny right now is that I constantly hear from reviews, friends, and fellow iPhone users how much they think AT&T sucks and want to move to Verizon. Personally I think this is all BS, and would love some more european and canadian cell phone companies to invade the US and finally give us some real competition in this country, or at least have the FCC standup and hold our carriers more accountable and stop the mergers.
ALL the US carriers suck in general! People may think Verizon's coverage is the best, compared to AT&T, but notice how they are competing on coverage, and not dropped calls, network speed, features (you can't check email at the same time you are on a call with Verizon... anywhere, with any phone), etc. Also notice how all the services cost around $80 or so for the minimum smartphone contract. Notice how they all have sneaky overblown hidden fees. Notice how the per txt fee and monthly charge for Txtx keeps going up and up and up. Notice how their customer service is slightly below or slightly above average. Notice how they all lock you into specific phones. Notice how they all lock you into two year contracts unless you are willing to buy one of their cheapo phones for a pay as you go contract. Notice how all the cheapo phones break if you sneeze the wrong way.
Verizon is one level of shit, and AT&T is another level of shit. And we americans are forced to deal with these levels of shit, and we go around saying one is so much greater than the other.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
This is one of the funniest and sadist things I have ever heard in my life and does not paint the American educational system in a good light.
http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/
I think it would be a better use of the FCC's limited time and resources if they were to hold Verizon to it's promise to open up their network.
Verizon already started to cover that with the DROID DOES campaign. But even if you agree with Verizon's ETF practices, I still commend the FCC for looking into the problem of making the "bill me $1.99 for browsing the web" button so easy to accidentally press.
Its one thing to try and recoup the costs of smartphones that you all but give to customers. There is plenty to be said about that but I'll give that part a pass here.
But to setup the OS such that a user can 'go online' as described only to be billed for it is just downright sleazy. I am quite sure that if any customers called in to complain Verizon's solution to them was that they just needed to add a data plan to their contract.
Look, I'm not anti corporations/big business but so many business models have turned into 'how can we best extract money from people' rather than 'provide good service in return for money'. That type of thinking needs to change and it is the job of the government to do that. They are the best 800lb. gorilla that can reign in large corps.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
American companies don't make money, they steal money. They lie and use "tricks and traps" to pick people's pockets. This crap with Verizon is typical. In California, AT&T submitted a terms of use agreement that was 1500 pages. I'm sure that it contained provisions that would have allowed them to take your house or savings. Even the almost useless state utilities commission rejected it, because the law states that these agreements must be understandable.
What kind of capitalism is this, exactly? The basic theory of capitalism says that buyers and sellers make informed decisions based on open information. How does changing the contract unilaterally fit in? First they write terms of service that allow them to change the rules without negotiation, then they double the cost of canceling. I know what the dumb ass libertarians and republicans will say: 'if you don't like it, you can quit before the change takes place.' This is bullshit because the cost of getting a new high end phone and new carrier is greater then the cost of keeping the service. How many people really change service before the term is up under any conditions?
And this thing with getting charged for a couple of bucks for hitting a button when you did not sign up for the service? That is flat out and out theft. It has nothing to do with actual capitalism. What good or service do you get for pushing the wrong button on a cell phone?
And what about the banks sorting ATM charges so users are charged the maximum overdraft fees? They sort the charges from biggest to smallest so you hit the overdraft at the beginning of the sequence and every charge after you go over the limit has an overdraft fee. Even if it is in the fine print somewhere it is stealing from consumers. Keep in mind that ATM overdraft fees were $38 Billion for the last year of published data. Not exactly chump change.
I am pro-capitalism, but there is no way the system in the US is actual capitalism. It's all about big corporate interests buying the government and then looting the economy. That's why the US is in a long term economic decline. Corporate america has adopted a model based on orgaized crime, not capitalism.
Does Verizon allow you to block data?
My wife's parents ended up with some incidental charges for accidental data access on their phones, called AT&T, and they refunded the amounts and asked if they wanted a "data block" put in place to prevent them from accidentally accessing data again. "Yes" "OK, we're all done, thanks for calling AT&T". Next day, my father-in-law tried the data access, and it came up "unavailable", and they've never seen a charge since.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
My Father died in October. He had a shared Verizon account with my Mother. They charged Mom $100 to terminate his account, even after I explained that he was dead. I wanted to terminate Mom's account as well, as she only talked to Dad on her cell phone. They refused to do it without having to pay more than $100 beyond the first $100! They told me Mom had to keep the account until it expired in July. While she racks up charges for a service she will not use; Her income is now very limited, she should be using the money to buy food and keep the house heated. A bit off topic to this tread but all of the paperwork and people you have to contact when someone dies is an absolute nightmare. People have been dieing for a really long time now, you would think it would be an easy one click process. Who is up for stating such a service? Oh right, Amazon already has that patented...
Verizon is not the only carrier to engineer this revenue generating feature. The evil wizards at Tracfone put an internet connection button between the "Send" key and the indicator on the display that says "OK" resulting in lots of unintended charges to the internet. When I contacted Tracfone about this issue and asked to have my internet connection ability (on the phone) disabled, they pointed to the problem being Motorola's MotorolaFlip, and that they could do nothing about it. Lovely to hear the Feds are doing something useful after so many years of ineptitude. THANK YOU FCC FOR DOING YOUR JOB! Perhaps we need to give an attaboy to the other government services when they show signs of life.
You have to realize though, that the people have much more power than the government could ever have, and it's a power that, theoretically, can be wielded much more quickly, and deal a much harder blow. The real problem is that people get too attached to their level of comfort, and use this as an excuse to avoid any effort required to restore any balance to the often tenuous relationship between producers and consumers. Yes, it's the dreaded "b" word (boycott). People hate this word because they claim it's ineffective. I don't necessarily agree. I opine that boycotts can be very effective, if they are executed properly.
Show me where it says anything remotely like that in the US Constitution. The only one covering your ass is you. They do have powers to regulate monopolies in interstate commerce, but until Verizon is declared one that doesn't apply.
Real programmers use "copy con program.exe"
Surplus profits, of course. Anything else?
Your parenting is shit. Empower your children with understanding, rather than trying to give them blinders.
This will never fucking work, and we don't need more fucking uptight morons like you in the world.
It would be nice if they would do something about consolidation in the telecom market. I think it's a little suspicious that, of the four remaining major wireless carriers, there's a significant trend towards uniformity among plan features, hardware, and especially pricing. In fact, one might even suspect price fixing. I remain shocked every time I travel abroad at how little people pay for wireless outside the USA.
All the government would need to do is do away with early termination fees for individual consumers, as well as mandate easy portability by forcing adoption of SIM or UICC cards, so users could quickly switch when a better deal came along.
I've had a Mi-Fi (dedicated 3G Wi-Fi access point) from Verizon since the summer. Works great (trouble-free video conferencing from rural Virginia!), but there are consistently charges for SMS messages "received" -- which are not from anyone I know -- given that there's no way to retrieve them, seems kinda disingenuous.
I seem to recall reading an article about them no longer charging if you accidentally do a data service then immediately close out of it. I think it was on MSNBC.com...
You just need to be a bit more careful.
They billed me for HBO even though I never signed up for it. It's possible some drunk family member was trying to watch some porn or something and accidently signed up for it? Maybe but I doubt it. If the economy wasn't so shit I might not have even noticed it and just paid but I was like "wtf why is this bill so big" and looked closer. I have fios for the internet I don't even really watch the TV barely so I might never have known. The whole thing was shady.
I would be willing to bet, as per the last paragraph of the letter, that Verizon requests that a good portion, if not all of the materials provided to answer the questions on hand, are kept confidential. Especially as it pertains to the actual cost of the phones.
No innovation here. As long as the ETF represents the losses that the provider would have had because of an early termination, I see no issue with it. If the cost of the phone is subsidized by the service contract, then an ETF should be the remaining subsidized cost of the phone. That should be specific to the type of phone, and spelled out in the contract.
Now the real question is: should the providers be allowed to even subsidize the phones via a combination service contract? I say sure because many people need this as a way to bankroll the cost of a new phone (a real bank is less likely to grant credit because they don't have a particular interest in generating demand for phone services). For this to be a valid offering, it needs to also offer paid-up-front pricing for the phone, and service at the basic service rate. The basic service rate must not be more than the total term cost minus the ETF (no jacking the service rates to embed the cost of phones). Basic service must be available to anyone owning a compatible phone, too.
The phone and the phone service are complements in microeconomics, just like Joel described. In this case the phone company is assisting in lowering the cost of one to drive demand for the other which they make their real revenue on (supposedly). That's fine as long as the basic costs balance out (not considering the extra service someone might later choose to add on) for the consumer. The problem exists when these numbers manipulate the consumer to bring in un-earned revenues (much like banks do for all those service fees they charge which are way much more then the supposed costs they claim those are to cover).
Again, there is no innovation here by Verizon, regardless of whether you look at this as a means to subsidize phones for people that cannot afford to buy them up front (and don't have the will power to save up to buy them later on), or look at this as a way to boost revenues by ripping off less savvy consumers ... because both of these things have been going on for decades.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Telus: Crap service. During a period of 3 months where my calls consistently went straight-to-voicemail (even when I was already in a call, it didn't beep my call waiting, so I definitely had signal), I was told there was no problems with the local network. Several of my friends had the same issue. Call doesn't come in, but you do get the voicemail alert 5 minutes later. Terrible customer service when I was with them
Rogers: Has been getting worse lately because they didn't have to compete for the iPhone etc plans and had a better 3G network, but now that Telus/Bell have a high-speed network and more Smartphones Rogers will probably have to smarten up again. Had a similar issue to the Telus one (with calls doing straight-to-voicemail) for about 1.5-2 weeks, admitted the issue and let me know when things were fixed. Customer service was actually quite nice, and they worked with me on the few little problems I came across.
Bell: Never used them. My co-worker did and had a "family plan" where his wife and him were *supposed* to be able to call each other without paying minutes. It never worked, and he spend 3-4 lunch hours every month for 6-8 months getting his bill "fixed" after *HE* meticulously found the overcharges and reported them. Of course it was not really fixed as the next month they screwed it up again. Uses the same network as Telus AFAIK
Fido: Actually a subsidiary of Rogers (I believe they were bought up by them). Slightly better pricing than Rogers on some deals/plans, but it's not worth absolutely terrible customer service. Contracts didn't detail all the charges such as the "network access fee", etc. They also lied about coverage areas when I signed up for my phone, as I checked the area I was moving to and their idea of a "local number" is the next-big-city on the same network (meaning I can call people in my home-city for free, get calls from other cellphones, but local landlines etc cannot call me without it being a long-distance call). They use the Roger's network, which they will happily tell you about when they detail their "coverage", but neglect to mention that you needed to pay a LD fee to call a local-to-where-you-are-calling-from phone unless you've paid for an add-on to your plan. Of course you have no way of knowing where your "local area" is without dialing a special number that is supposed to tell you when you're outside....
Koodo: Telus' no-network-access-fee, supposedly cheaper no-contract plan lovechild. Haven't tried it and have not enough data to make a comparison. They definitely don't advertise their affiliation with Telus though from anything I've seen...
True, their contracts aren't quite as bad (yet). For $100 dollars you can even get pay-as-you-go that doesn't expire for a year (the best I found in the US). But in Germany you can buy minutes for 15€ and they're good for a year, or two years if you spend €30. Oh, and that includes calling within the network for 3c.
Same with DSL and phone service by the way, even after value added tax and despite of the low dollar, it's still much cheaper.
The US oligopol seems to make good money, and adding another player just makes them devide the loot by 4 instead of 3.
From TFA:
“Nobody is required to pay an ETF,” Gerace said. “You always have the choice of buying a mobile phone at full price with no ETF. Or you can buy a device at a discount with a one- or two-year contract. If you stay with your contract, you don’t pay a fee at all.”
But what's the point, with a device Verizon classifies as a "smartphone?" They flat-out refuse to allow you to choose NOT to have a data plan, even if you have a phone with wi-fi capability and can't justify paying $30/mo. for a data plan you'll never use (I always have wi-fi available, unless I'm driving, in which case I'm not going on the internet with my phone).
I called and spoke in person to several Verizon reps, and they all told me that, even if I bought a device they classify as a smartphone independent of a contract, they will still automatically bill me for the $30/mo. data plan; they don't give you a choice.
In Germany the Telcos are actually trying to make the market more competitive, not less. We used to have few choices*: T-Mobile, Viag Interkom, Mannesmann Mobilfunk and E-Plus. Probably a few more that I can't remember. Viag was bought by Telefónica Europe and turned into O2 and Mannesmann was absorbed by Vodaphone. A few years later, explosion.
Off the hand I can now enumerate T-Mobile, O2, Vodaphone, E-Plus, BASE, Simyo, Congstar, Fonic, vybemobile, Aldi Talk, BILDMobil, blau.de, klarmobil.de, EWE Tel... Let's look at what we have here.
The traditional mobile telcos: T-Mo, O2, Vodaphone, E-Plus
Just like what you'd expect, these are the big corporations selling access to their service.
The off-brands: BASE (E-Plus), Simyo (E-Plus), Congstar (T-Mo), klarmobil.de (T-Mo), Fonic (O2)... the list goes on
These daughter companies usually sell no-frills plans: They don't offer any physical presence and sell somewhat cheap, extremely simple data plans like "all calls to everywhere cost ten Cents per minute". The plans are often prepaid and only cover the bare minimum of what you can do with your cellphone (more advanced functionality is there but expensive).
If they don't sell no-frills plans they sell flatrates. Either way, easily understood price structures are usually the focus of their marketing, with slogans like "because simple is simply simple" or the somewhat bizarre "no hidden costs, no hidden llama".
Simyo was the first such no-frills company; after competitors lost a lawsuit against E-Plus (on the grounds that Simyo was not merely a new plan but a true innovation) everyone and their dog decided to have one as well. In fact, the second such offering came from a partnership between O2 and Tchibo - a company that mainly sells coffee.
Third-party brands: Aldi Talk, BILDMobil, EWE Tel, vybemobile, many others
I said "everyone and their dog" and I mean it. Supermarkets, tabloids, energy providers, TV stations, online communities and even eBay are all selling access to one of the big providers' mobile network.
Of interest is vybemobile, offered in part by Universal Music. The twist to their offering is that you get ring tones, demo versions of songs etc. as part of the package.
German mobile providers are reproducing like tribbles and the market has special offers for just about any taste. With supermarkets and newspapers angling in on it it's also fiercely competitive, leading to very reasonable prices. Byzantine pricing structures used to be commonplace but have been all but killed thanks to the no-frills companies.
Will this also work in the States? Probably not. Whereas most of Germany is covered by all networks, the same isn't true in the States. Also, while Simyo has allowed E-Plus some inroads into the market, it has also triggered a race to the bottom with prepaid no-frills offers and (both prepaid and postpaid) flatrates being aggressively priced to get a slightly bigger slice of the pie. This does not mesh well with selling subsidized phones and including expensive services.
Still, if one provider tries it you can be sure to have everyone else follow suit (or succeed with their lawsuit, cementing the oligopoly forever).
* I'm not listing debitel as they don't have their own network, even though they are the biggest mobile provider in Germany. debitel operates by selling access to other providers' networks.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
What's even better is that they want to charge people with PDA phones, or smart phones data access, and all this other bullshit. They even charge you for checking your own voicemail because it's "a service" if im paying for voicemail why should i have to encounter additional charges for such?! It doesn't make sense
indeed. history is written by the victors and that becomes an accepted reality, the rationale comes _afterwards_. Capitalism differs from Feudalism only in symbol and myth. Both are violent exploitation, yet even the lowliest serfs defend it. It is popular to say "it's a lousy system, except for all the others" never realizing the self-hypnosis at work. You get up each day and perpetuate your own exploitation, you might even join an army and fight to the death for it. A curious thing. Better arrangements are obvious, and usually successful until violently suppressed.
look sig is kool