FCC Cracking Down on Cellphone ''Bill Shock''

[exfileme]

The FCC is cracking down on hidden fees and incomprehensible contracts.

FCC Cracking Down on Cellphone ''Bill Shock'' : Read more

 

[Guest]

"But the commission doesn't think that's enough based on the hundreds of complaints sent in by consumers"

There is what 200+ million cell phone users in the US and it only takes hundreds of complaints for the FCC to force new regulations on the industry.

Anyway taking advantage of the stupid to make money is our god given rights as Americans!

 

[braneman]

sounds nice, now if we got more infrastructure here in America we could have $4 100 mbps internet like they do in Tokyo. rather than 256k 10gb's capped monthly with an extra $10 for every gb after that.

 

[formin]

about time

 

[jojesa]

Wow...it took the FCC years and thousands of complaints and still they have doubts.
Please grow a back bone and take consumers side for a change.
Sometimes we get even charged without even going over the plan minutes.

 

[duckmanx88]

sadly lobbyists will be sent to washington and the pockets of politicians will be filled with money by the cell carriers to stop any form of legislation to stop these shock bills and outrageous prices for both cell and internet service.

 

[cloakster]

Its 2010, people should know what a megabyte is. I know the Wireless Providers are terrible and love taking our money, but it isn't the over limit charges that are the problem, its the small limits that are.

 

[omnimodis78]

"...hundreds of complaints sent in by consumers regarding unexpected charges..." - no way that's all they have - hundreds - they must have hundreds of thousands! It is unbelievable that these companies operate, in fact, almost encourage consumer ignorance so that they can make surreal amount of dough! Same thing is happening up here in Canada...it's unreal. Europe has sorted this out years ago, and so did South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and China.

 

[Marco925]

Thursday Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman Julius Genachowski will propose rules that will force wireless carriers to alert subscribers when they have reached their monthly usage limits and are about to rack in extra charges. Consumers will be informed either by voice or text messages.

Why stop there? why not target Land ISPs as well? All of them evil!

 

[nukemaster]

There are hidden fees on so many items now. eco fee comes to find. Just add it into the price of the product.

 

[AMD_pitbull]

[citation][nom]cloakster[/nom]Its 2010, people should know what a megabyte is. I know the Wireless Providers are terrible and love taking our money, but it isn't the over limit charges that are the problem, its the small limits that are.[/citation]
It might not mean that people dont know what a megabyte is with regards to actual amount, but, with relation to compression of data on the phone.

Anyways, the cellphone companies can complain all they like, but, I live in a border town (Windsor, Ontario) and Roaming charges are incurred from making a call in your own home sometimes. 1 or 2 companies have changed this, but, you can get a $300 phone bill cuz you called home from work, and they said you were over in the states, and it can take a lot of fighting just to get that fixed. Also, do we not remember the article not too long ago that stated that cellphone development was actually influenced to make it easy to "accidentally" open a browser and start incurring more data usage charges?

 

[Hunter844]

So when they send me this text, I guess I'll get charged for that too.

 

[zerapio]

"Most people still don’t know what a megabyte is," Genachowski said
Pfft, everyone knows that a mb is 2^20 bytes; or is it 10^6? Hmm, now I'm confused...

 

[applegetsmelaid]

What the hell is a megabyte?

 

[beayn]

Cell phone companies are no different than your typical sidewalk scammer. I've been ripped off by every cell company I've been with and now I simply go without one. Canada has it worse than American companies in terms of contracts, roaming, texting and other retarded charges. Hell, I was even charged $1.74 every month in interest from one company because I was "late" paying my bill. The bill date was the 8th and it was postmarked the 27th and it was due on the 29th (21 days from bill date), meaning it was late when I got it. This does not even get into data charges, texting charges (before unlimited was common), roaming charges (a french antenna was near my house and I'd often get that instead of my cell company), dropped calls, long distance charges on top of roaming... the list goes on.

People who have text bills of $4000 because they thought they had unlimited is just a misunderstanding and the company should waive such bills. I mean how hard is it to retroactively apply an unlimited plan for the customer??

Instead they send it to collections and screw their customers out of thousands when the actual cost of the service was next to nothing for them and it could have been a quick billing fix.

 

[mayne92]

These spammers sites (from wesdefee and look77) are actually the same site with just what seems like virtual domains; same layout but different colors haha. Bad english all over it, sketchy "About Us" in the last paragraph...and the CMZZ animated icon is Chinese...Hmmmmmm. I love crap like that...

 

[jimmysmitty]

In honesty I do understand it. Now with a smart phone, you can check usage easily with an app. With 3G and lower phones, not so easy. My EnV Touch had problems loading the 'My Verizon' page while my LG Ally loads it nice and easy.

The Verizon website is easy to use but not everyone does. I for one am suprised we even have limits. Its so cheap for providers like Verizon (especially when multiple carriers piggyback on the large carriers and pey em for it).

But with time it will get better and the next generation of people wont need the same stuff. But the baby boomers do. My mom can barley get her Storm to work so I doubt she knows how to use everything as easily as I do.

 

[gmarsack]

This happened to me. Went to the Verizon store, spent over 400.00 on phones, bought a data plan (for my phone - Moto Droid), then I got my first phone bill.. $800.00. Little did I know my wife assumed her phone had a data plan too. Ended up having to pay $600.00 of it, only after arbitration. So in just over a month, I spent over 1000.00! Needless to say, I'm in favor of the FCC plan. Had I been notified, this never would have happened.

 

[Guest]

wow where was this over the last year when verizon kept hitting us with random bills over 1000$

 

[jj463rd]

Cell Phone service is exhorbantly overpriced to begin with.
I just had my first cell phone last year and when the contract is up
I will go back to landline.Internet service on the other hand is an outstanding value and completely worthwhile,necessary too.