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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.
Is to protect the people. I believe protecting us from getting screwed by gigantic corporations is just as valid as protecting us from invasion.
Maybe letters from you don't work, but letters from the FCC usually work. I've had a problem with a bank once, I wrote them and they completely ignored me. After 30 days, I've asked for help from a governmental organization, they wrote to the bank and a couple of days letter I had my answer AND the problem was fixed thanks to a simple inquiry sent by the right person/organization.
Yes, it's sarcasm. Deal with it!
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
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"
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.
It is often helpful to ask your lawyer if he'll write letters for you when dealing with companies/institutions. They see the legal letterhead and go hmmmmmm it'll be way easier to just fix this. If you are specific and just need a letter it is generally quite cheap.
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...
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.
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