Congress Investigates Carriers' Debt Collections

Julie188 writes "'Tis the season for the government to crack down on abusive practices by your secretly evil national wireless carrier. Next up: a congressional committee will be looking into a debt collection practice that prevents customers from filing lawsuits. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) will be examining a contract clause that forces customers to waive their right to sue and instead agree to forced arbitration. He is hot on the tails of the carriers after a similar investigation of credit card companies lead to nine banks removing the forced arbitration clause from their contracts. This follows the week's earlier news that the FCC was going to try to come up with new rules to prevent wireless bill shock."

Comments

If you need an honest man

[ciaran_o_riordan]

I think Dennis Kucinich is someone that can be trusted to look after the people instead of pandering to business.

Re:If you need an honest man

[dkleinsc]

He's no communist, and he's definitely not a kook. He's my congressman, and I've spoken with him at several public events. The thing is, he has throughout his career taken stands that upset the rich and powerful, so they often do their best to portray him as a kook.

For instance, the most famous episode from early in his political career (as mayor of Cleveland) was refusing to sell Cleveland's municipal power company to the private company that controls most of Ohio's electricity market. The electric company's pals at the banks then threatened the city with default rather than rolling over the debt as they had been doing for decades. Dennis stood his ground, the banks made good on their threat, and Kucinich lost his reelection bid. But in the long run he saved residents and businesses in Cleveland millions of dollars in electric bills.

His more recent exploits include:
  * Refusing to support the Patriot Act.
  * Refusing to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He consistantly votes against appropriations for those wars, and has been doing so since before they started.
  * Introducing articles of impeachment against both George W Bush and Dick Cheney.
  * Acting as one of the leaders of the backbencher holdouts for a public option in the health care reform bill. Unfortunately, Obama was able to convince him that HCR without a public option was better than no HCR, so he eventually voted for it.

The Democratic leadership doesn't give a damn what he does, though, because he's not good at getting oodles of lobbyist dollars (gee, I wonder why). So when he was running for President in 2008, the questions he got during debates were about whether he'd seen a UFO, not about his plans for reforming health care without mandating that everyone buy insurance.

Re:In California -

[TheGratefulNet]

I'd care MORE about employment contracts and forced arbitration.

note: sorry for the very long post, but its important as it deals with employment in the tech field.

I spent a good month dealing with an asshole company who would not give in on basic simple concepts. they created an employment contract, I rejected many lines in it and asked them to rewrite it. at first they understood that what they were asking for was illegal in california and unenforceable. a week later, their legal 'team' refused to edit even a single line in the employment contract. we tried another tact and gave them our own (I was going thru a middelman at the time) contract which I believed was a lot more fair to both sides. they refused.

this went around and around for over a month. in the end, I walked away, at the advice of pretty much everyone.

cellphones are BS, I can (and do) live well without one. nope, I don't own or carry one (at all). but I do need to have a job and the jobs are coming with 'strings attached' when you read the current crop of contracts.

even if you say 'this is not enforceable in XYZ state' they won't back off.

I learned one thing: when you get an employment offer, say 'thanks!' and then follow it with 'as soon as my lawyer reviews this, I'll get back to you'. non-confrontational but do NOT EVER EVER EVER sign an employment contract (these days) without YOUR legal guy looking it over.

the way it has to work (again, as I learned my lesson) is: my 'guy' will call your guy and they'll talk legal shit to each other. 'where did you go to law school? oh yeah, did you know so and so?' etc etc.

they connect and they review the doc and say 'you don't REALLY think its legal or fair to ask for clause #3, do you?' and it progresses with both lawyers comparing dick sizes (so to speak) and eventually coming to an agreement. what makes this work is that they both know that they know the laws and you can't BS a BSer. that's one key concept. the other is that you have to allow your layer to be the 'bad guy' and you should NEVER come off to the new company as the bad guy. you WANT to sign that contract but your lawyer (the 'bad guy') won't let you. you appear good to the new company but you also do NOT give up your rights.

in the end, the company respects you, you KNOW you have a fair contract and no 'cannot work for competitors for next 10 years' BS clauses in there. your lawyer played good cop/bad cop with you and the company and you get a straight deal.

if you do not do that, dollars to donuts you signed an indentured servant contract and didn't even realize it.

especially NOW when the econ is in the dumps, companies are trying to screw you over with your employment contract. they count on the fact that you are 'desparate' enough to sign anything.

don't object to HR when you are there. smile, thank them and tell them that as soon as your 'guy' checks this over, you'll be happy to sign it. then let your hired guy defend you before you sign that rotton scummy endentured servant agreement.

lesson learned! please use this procedure next time you get an offer letter. I've found that in sofware (my field) almost NO ONE reads or even tries to cross out any lines in their contract. get a lawyer. its not just for 'top execs' anymore. we ALL need those guys to review our docs and fight for us.

(you would not believe the legally unenforceable things in the text of my last contract. it made me and my recruiter pretty sick, I'll tell you.)

Re:Where's the technology?

[Sponge Bath]

Here is what AT&T charges above the advertised rate for my wireless:

Credits, Adjustments, and Other Charges:
* Regulatory Cost Recovery Charge: 0.66
* Federal Universal Service Charge: 1.04
* TX Franschise Tax Recovery: 0.30
* Texas Universal Service: 0.65

Taxes:
* 911 Service Fee: 0.50
* Tx State Telecom Tax: 2.72
* City Telecom Tax: 0.44
* City District Telecom Tax: 0.29

The important thing to note here is the "Credits, Adjustments, and Other Charges" section is not taxes. They are fees with names made up by AT&T to sound like taxes so customers won't complain. In reality this section is just an additional $2.65 monthly charge not included in the advertised rate. They should clearly state a rate for everything that is not taxes. But, of course, they are evil and regulation is weak so that will never happen.