Victory for Truth in Wireless Billing
Posted on January 24, 2008 by oregoncub
Tags, Telecommunications and CUB Connects
If you are one of the millions of Americans who uses a cell phone, chances are good that you received an unwelcome surprise the first time you paid that wireless bill. Wireless telecommunications companies have for quite some time gotten away with advertising prices for their cell phone services that did not include taxes and fees (for example, the Universal Service Charge), which are then added to the advertised rates, so that the customer wound up paying more than they had thought they would.
For some customers, this is about to change, thanks to the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates. NASUCA, an organization to which CUB belongs, won the court battle against the big wireless companies, who have been told they can no longer hide certain fees in separate line items.
The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday declined to review an appeal by Sprint and T-Mobile in their bid to prohibit states from placing any restrictions on their billing practices, such as prohibiting adding unadvertised line items. Federal law prohibits states from regulating wireless carriers’ rates, but allows them to regulate terms and conditions. Several states are pursuing truth-in-billing laws; but the wireless carriers want to prohibit such regulation, claiming that it somehow regulates “rates.” The real issue is that they do not want to allow states to protect customers from unfair business practices, such as hiding costs in line items when advertising a billing rate.
Our (cold-weather) hats are off to NASUCA, and all those who worked long and hard to bring truth in billing to this branch of the huge telecommunications industry. CUB will keep this ruling in mind as we look into options for protecting Oregon’s telecom customers. Consumers in states with truth-in-billing laws will have a clearer idea of what they are getting into financially when they sign a wireless contract. Perhaps one day soon consumers in Oregon will, too.
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03/10/17 | 0 Comments | Victory for Truth in Wireless Billing