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No, the FCC is Not Forcing Consumers To Pay $225 To File Complaints (washingtonpost.com)
Having your voice heard at the Federal Communications Commission could soon cost you hundreds of dollars, according to congressional Democrats Tuesday who oppose a looming rule change by the nation's top telecom and cable regulator. But that may not be the case after all, a review of the FCC proposal shows. From a report: At issue is a proposal that the FCC is expected to vote on Thursday that looks at the agency's process for handling "informal" complaints -- the kind you might file if you've received an unwanted robocall or if you've heard something indecent on the radio. Under the proposal, the FCC could soon pass the informal complaints it receives directly to the companies that consumers are complaining about, the lawmakers said in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. That might result in FCC staff no longer reviewing those submissions, they said. And customers who receive no relief from the companies would then be forced to lodge a "formal" complaint at the FCC, an existing procedure that costs $225.
"To advise consumers that they file a $225 formal complaint if not satisfied ignores the core mission of the FCC -- working in the public interest," wrote Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). The controversy was first reported by the Verge. Staffers for the House Energy and Commerce Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FCC said in a statement that the lawmakers had misunderstood the proposal. "The item would not change the Commission's handling of informal complaints," the agency said.
"To advise consumers that they file a $225 formal complaint if not satisfied ignores the core mission of the FCC -- working in the public interest," wrote Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.). The controversy was first reported by the Verge. Staffers for the House Energy and Commerce Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The FCC said in a statement that the lawmakers had misunderstood the proposal. "The item would not change the Commission's handling of informal complaints," the agency said.
From the summary it seems that a regular complaint is still free, but now it will go straight to the company whose offense triggered a consumer to lodge a complaint. If they don't do anything to improve on the situation and the consumer wants to see something happen, the next option is the $225 formal complaint.
In other words it appears that if you want the FCC to do something other than just pass the complaint on and wash their hands of it, you will pay $225. If you're OK with that then you can still complain for free.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
... is how The Verge is simply a Democrat mouthpiece that doesn't actually do any kind of Journalism. At least, that's the news if you weren't already aware about all these left-wing biased online blogs that try to pass themselves off as news these days.
Also INB4 "But muh Fox news". Yes, the state of reporting and journalism in the country is absolutely atrocious and going downhill.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
America should deport 2 Indians
The FCC is reading and working informal complaints now. The proposal is to stop doing that and just pass the complaints on. I can be ignored by my phone company and ISP all by myself, thank you very much. If I'm contacting the FCC it's _because_ I'm being ignored. This let's the FCC ignore the complaints unless you pay $225 bucks. It's practically a poll tax.
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They should charge $225 for each astroturfed comment they get.
Most working class people cannot afford to throw $200+ toward a complaint that might help them deal with a big business---if there is a legal basis for intervention, which, of course, they have no way of knowing without consulting a lawyer.
A decent chunk of people couldn't throw $200+ toward a complaint even if it would definitely result in action.
If the FCC is supposed to oversee the telecom industry in the interest of the public, then this is a great way to slough off one of its fundamental responsibilities. Removing consumer protections often provokes outrage, so apparently the new plan is to simply render the protections meaningless or difficult to invoke.
Has anyone started a pool on how much Pai gets paid by Verizon when he's hired after stepping down from the FCC? I want in on that action.
---
According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
If you read the article and the rebuttal statements from the FCC, it appears this is the new policy:
You will still be able to file an "informal" complaint, but those are the ones that just get forwarded to the spam folder at the company you're complaining about and ignored entirely by the FCC.
However, if you want to file a formal complaint to the FCC, you will be required to pay $225 at the time you file your complaint, which will then be forwarded to the spam folder at the FCC before being completely ignored.
If you want to form a complaint that won't be ignored by the FCC, you must be a registered lobbyist for the telecom industry, be a member of a Trump Country Club, or god you must be new here, get the fuck out before we call security.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I called Novell once to report a bug in their software... they asked me for a credit card number, as obviously reporting a bug was using software support services that the billed $200/hr for! (For the record, they were clearing interrupt flags on return from interrupt instead of saving and restoring the state of the flags, meaning that interrupts disabled before entering Novell code were mysteriously enabled after. They also told me, "I'm going through the Windows code, and we've already fixed that issue!" Sure... but not in any code that was available for me to use!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
The old language is ambiguous, and the new language is still ambiguous in about the same way.
Entropy is conserved, but the universe still gets hotter.
so they really lowered the price!
normally you would have to lobby millions into Ajit's pocket to be heard by the fcc...
I'll be impressed if they can even find the companies that I routinely file complaints against. (Robocallers and telemarketers calling cell phones while forging their CallerID.) If they send me the forwarding information, I'll take my complaint directly to the source... and bring a few other provisions, too.
Trump is a traitor. None of this has anything to do with him sucking Putin's cock, which he will do in private as soon and as often as possible. He loves Putin's cock. Trump is a traitor who loves Putin's cock. Deal with it snowflake.
Regulatory (see executive in the vast majority of cases) agencies will always be used politically in this way. The general idea is this:
Contrary to the constant attributions to Hitler and racists, conservatives will always look to shrink the size of government and the associated costs. Regulatory agencies, not established or checked by congress due to their very nature of being birthed by the executive (IRS, FBI, EPA, ICE etc etc) are almost entirely at the mercy of the currently sitting executive. This means that the next executive can simply change the rules. If you want to protect these agencies and their roles in government, talk to your congressmen, talk to your senators and get them enshrined in law. Every executive action should be considered temporary, and you should not settle for executive action if you really want change. They are, and always will be, political shortcuts taken to appease their voters. This isn't ever going to get solved without actual legislation being made to make these "guarantees" everyone seems to think they have.
Everything going on in current events is a perfect example of why executive actions are simply not enough. Trump is showing you the weakness in that system right now. Get laws passed, don't settle for temporary solutions and then complain when you hand a new person full authority over massive chunks of what could be considered rights. This problem was created by the precedent, not the president. The more we accept executive action the less power we have as citizens over the process of governing.
Now instead of merely throwing away informal complaints, we (the FCC) will shit on them, set them on fire, and advise ISP to drop you as a customer. Then, and only then, will we throw the complaint away.
Sincerely,
Ajit Pai.
From the very next section of the same article - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
In December 2015, Godwin commented on the Nazi and fascist comparisons being made by several articles on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying: "If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump, or any other politician."[14]
On August 13, 2017, Godwin made similar remarks on social networking websites Facebook and Twitter with respect to the two previous days' Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, endorsing and encouraging efforts to compare its alt-right organizers to Nazis.[15][16][17][18]
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Pai is making the government more _useful_. It's just a difference of opinion regarding for whom it should be useful. Pai thinks it's the wealthy oligarchs who pay him and you seem to be of the opinion that it's the people who elected his boss (Donald Trump). See, just a difference of opinion really...
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Are we not paying these assholes salaries already? Looks like its time to cut the deadwood so lets start at the top. Cut the top echelon 50% the next layer down 10% and let the rest get back to work unhindered.
see figure one, Holmes!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Here's the old / existing version:
 1.717 Procedure.
The Commission will forward informal complaints to the appropriate carrier for investigation. The carrier will, within such time as may be prescribed, advise the Commission in writing, with a copy to the complainant, of its satisfaction of the complaint or of its refusal or inability to do so. Where there are clear indications from the carrierâ(TM)s report or from other communications with the parties that the complaint has been satisfied, the Commission may, in its discretion, consider a complaint proceeding to be closed, without response to the complainant. In all other cases, the Commission will contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised. If the complainant is not satisfied by the carrierâ(TM)s response and the Commissionâ(TM)s disposition, it may file a formal complaint in accordance with  1.721 of this part.
A quick summary of the old/existing process:
The FCC informs the company of the complaint. If they don't resolve it, the consumer can file a formal complaint ($255)
In actual practice - the FCC logs complaints to a database and acts when there are many similar complaints against a company, or similar companies.
And the new version:
1.717 Procedure.
The Commission will forward informal complaints to the appropriate carrier for investigation and may set a due date for the carrier to provide a written response to the informal complaint to the Commission, with a copy to the complainant. The response will advise the Commission of the carrierâ(TM)s satisfaction of the complaint or of its refusal or inability to do so. Where there are clear indications from the carrierâ(TM)s response or from other communications with the parties that the complaint has been satisfied, the Commission may, in its discretion, consider a complaint proceeding to be closed. In all other cases, the Commission will notify the complainant that if the complainant is not satisfied by the carrierâ(TM)s response, or if the carrier has failed to submit a response by the due date, the complainant may file a formal complaint in accordance with  1.721 of this part.
A quick summary of the proposed process:
The FCC informs the company of the complaint. If they don't resolve it, the consumer can file a formal complaint ($255)
In actual practice - the FCC logs complaints to a database and acts when there are many similar complaints against a company, or similar companies.
I've had to contact the FCC a few times, and all it did was increase my frustration at the situation at hand. A lot of time filling out forms, with zero impact on anything.
$225 is sufficient to keep me from hoping that they just might actually be effective the next time around.
Check your premises.
RedK is a moron. One article doesn't redefine an entire publication. That's retarded. The problem with Fox News is not one or two stories that are completely wrong, it's MOST of them that are completely wrong ON PURPOSE.
Go figure, the treasonous republicunt without a clue jumps on a single example - while simultaneously denying the ocean he's drowning in, what a retarded faggot.
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2014/sep/16/fact-checking-fox-msnbc-and-cnn-punditfacts-networ/
http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon-era-blueprint-for-fox-news
reality has a well known liberal bias
Also, am I the only one who's sick and tired of hearing mainstream media called "liberal biased" when that same media falls in line with their corporate masters 99% of the time (occasionally supporting Gay rights and Abortion rights as if doing so excuses the 24/7 pro-corporate coverage on economics)?
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What's wrong with liking cock? Are you an intolerant shitlord?
Either way, the FCC will still ignore individual informal complaints for free and ignore individual formal complaints for $250.
(The Citizens United ruling makes corporations "people" but sadly, contrary to the Declaration of Independence, apparently not all people are created equal in the eyes of our various governmental agencies and representatives.)
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
...you're suggesting that congresspeople of the opposition party may have "misunderstood" (accidentally or deliberately) and then used that "mistaken" information to gin up outrage?
Hm. Can't imagine that happening in America.
-Styopa
I hope I'll have to cash to complain
Of course not, but PUTIN's cock comes with a price tag and Trump is happy to pay it without realizing how much it is. He loves Putin's cock more than he loves America.
Funny how people can talk about the potus like this and the moderators are cool with it. But when I post that its time for the British to leave northern Ireland the post is deleted in less then 10 seconds. Kinda makes you wonder
“You have reached the 911 emergency number. Your estimated wait time may exceed 20 minutes. If you have a 911 PrePaid Express Membership, press 1, or stay on the line for a while, and someone will condescend to speak to your peasant ass sometime, at some point, maybe, in the future, eventually, when we’re all done helping our paying customers. If you simply can’t wait and don’t have a current, active membership, well, pay-up next time.
What bugs me is that the federal law preempts civil suits against the likes of phone spammers, those who ignore the do-not-call list, etc.
My family has our land lines on the do-not-call list and yet is running a higher ratio of junk to real calls than junk to real snail mail, and the robocallers are starting to show up on our cellphones (which is supposedly strictly a no-no).
If we could civil-sue the offenders (say, in small-claims court) for damages in the form of the cost of our time and resources in receiving those calls, we could recover at least some of our losses, while the offenders might think twice about re-offending. But we can't, because the federal government preempted such suits, and then doesn't take effective action against the offenders, so the level of offence, and resulting damage, explodes.
It seems to me that such preemption might constitute a "taking" under the Fifth Amendment (for the alleged "public purpose" of avoiding crippling legitimate businesses with bogus suits from disgruntled customers when they make a legitimate phone contact).
If so, the Fed owes us all a lot of money.
Anyone up for running a class-action to recover that? B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Oh yes, let the companies resolve the complaints themselves. That has worked so well with private medicaid, private prisons, food, and drugs... oh wait, no it hasn't. So yes, it essentially costs way too much money for the government to enforce its own regulations. Imagine if you had to pay the police every time you called them, but hey... they'll help the poor peon citizens pass on the complaints for free... pfft.
I see one and only one bias: Pro-corporate, anti-worker. The drive is always for more free trade, more globalism, less safety and environmental regulations, less social safety programs and more of the military industrial complex. We're thrown a bone on social issues to chew on while all the meat goes to the guys running the board of directors.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
... after I filed an informal complaint to the FCC about their data usage calculations and trying to sell me on a much more expensive plan ($40 per line per month for four lines). I asked them how they knew about my complaint and the guy whoâ(TM)ll called said they saw my name and cell number on the complaint. So companies are either notified, or they monitor the complaint stream.
We should kill off both the duopoly and the regulations that have limited competition in the market places for which the FCC regulates. While there is competition in some markets its unduly expensive to get into other markets (radio stations, cellular phone/cellular data, broadcast TV, etc). There is no reason I shouldn't be able to throw up a radio station in Keene, New Hampshire as an example. Where some regions like NYC there exists competition we have little in the Keene, New Hampshire area and that is true for most of the United States. If you look at telecommunications lines and cable television we've had governmental interference since the early days. While I'm less familiar with the history of telephone the cable situation was quite blatant. In the 1980s cable companies were literally granted monopolies. Nobody else was permitted to run cable television lines. Which is somewhat humorous considering that at the same time companies were arguing that it was too expensive to run cable unless they were ensured a monopoly. High costs to entry into a market is a natural barrier to entry so you don't need to grant a monopoly. What it really did was ensure that certain companies who got in first didn't have to compete down the line and would recoup costs prior to the possibility of any other entrants into the market.
I think the solution to killing off the duopoly in the case of cable/telecommunications of the data and TV kind is for open debate. Once a monopoly / duopoly is established of this kind in an unfair way it's a near impossibility short of new technology for another even large company like Google to enter the market. So the solution probably does start with simplifying laws, reducing taxes/regulatory costs/etc for new entrants/etc, but ultimately any company that has zero debts that is a monopoly is going to be able to beat a new entrant into the market on price because of the prior government introduced advantage.
For cellular I think the solution is probably along the lines of forcing telecommunications companies to share spectrum. However even while we don't have the technology to do that and none of the current players would want to develop it there is another potential solution. Right now companies have control over *EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE* when the FCC sells off spectrum even when they don't actually utilize that spectrum everywhere. You could potentially open spectrum which does not get utilized to the market via homesteading (albeit with restrictions). On top of this companies who gain rights to spectrum via auction or homesteading should be forced to lease access to that spectrum at some sort of fair market rate where they can profit off running the towers separately from any services they offer thereof. The other thing is in reality the towers should be entirely separate businesses owned and operated by different and many entities. Restrictions ensuring that there are multiple tower operators in any given region for instance that could then lease access out based on telecommunication service provider use. This would ensure competition at all levels and open the market up to smaller telecommunications companies and even independent tower operators.
this brings up an interesting question. Here on /. we're used to not RTFA (reading the f****** article). We took that up a notch years ago and started not RTFS (Reading the f****** summary). Progress continued as progress does and now we don't even RTFS (Read the f******* Summary). At last we've reached what I would call "Late stage Slashdot" where even the Subby doesn't RTFS.
I'm not sure where we go from here. Does subby not RTFH (Read the f****** Headline)? And even if we can achieve that, what then? It's like those questions about the existence of God. Could subby sub a story so devoid of content that subby couldn't sub it?
These weighty matters are what keep me up at night.
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Once upon a time, a little over 20 years ago, Newsweek was verifying the facts of a story they had. But then the Drudge Report posted the story, having to do with both the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and claims that Newsweek was quashing the story. Newsweek and other mainstream news outlets at the time said, no, Newsweek was just doing normal fact checking.
However, since then I've seen a lot of media outlets be less diligent than they used to be. And a lot of new blogs by whacko's in mom's basement...
Mine are as follow : "In actual practice - the FCC logs complaints to a database , company ignore the complaint and forward it , and FCC DO NOT acts when there are many similar complaints against a company, or similar companies and will now ONLY start to act when there is a formal $225 paid complaint".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
You're entitled to your own opinion. Not to your facts.
Here are 87 FCC enforcement actions from the last six months.
https://transition.fcc.gov/eb/...
The FCC said in a statement that the lawmakers had misunderstood the proposal. "The item would not change the Commission's handling of informal complaints," the agency said.
And if there's one thing the Pai FCC is known for, it's telling the truth.
I think if you read the old and the new rules you will see a glaring loop hole has been opened in the new rules. Under the old rules if the carrier did not respond then the FCC that the FCC would contact the complainant- so they were more likely to get a response/ review/ result from the FCC: "In all other cases, the Commission will contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised."
However, under the new rules that was struck. So if the carrier simply ignores the complaint and never responds then the only recourse is for the person complaining to file a formal complaint. So yes, the formal complaint was always a last resort option, but now they are making it the only option as they are removing any review or consideration of ignored complaints.
This means that for carriers the best practice will be to ignore all complaints or to fail to respond to any beyond the easy ones and force the person to pay to file a "real" complaint. Often you have to look at how these kinds of "simple, small" rules can be abused to see what is being done.
Then again, IANAL so my reading could be off but my plain English reading leads me to this conclusion.
Old:
--
Where there are clear indications from the carrie's report or from other communications with the parties that the complaint has been satisfied, the Commission may, in its discretion, consider a complaint proceeding to be closed, without response to the complainant. In all other cases, the Commission will contact the complainant
--
New:
--
Where there are clear indications from the carrier's response or from other communications with the parties that the complaint has been satisfied, the Commission may, in its discretion, consider a complaint proceeding to be closed. In all other cases, the Commission will notify the complainant
--
Looks to me the word was changed from "contact the complainant" to "notify the complainant".
> for carriers the best practice will be to ignore all complaints or to fail to respond
I would say the opposite. It's easy to fix the 0.1% of issues that are reported to the FCC. If complaints regulators know about are ignored, that's when regulators start taking a closer look at the company. They don't follow up on each complaint individually, they do take note of companies that have thousands of unresolved complaints.
So I get modded to "Troll" even here, with this? Are there actually Ajit Pai fans on here? If so why do you hate the Internet and your own country so goddamned much? The guy is a CANCER and there needs to be strong CHEMO to get rid of him before he spreads even farther. Seriously what's wrong with you people?
A politician tells lies to spread fear to gain or hold power. Golly! When has that ever happened before?
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.