Mobile Phone Operator Lobbyists Say No Laws Necessary To Prevent 'Bill Shock'
from the because-it-doesn't-happen? dept
For nearly a decade we've been covering stories of people getting bill shock when mobile phone bills show up that are in the tens of thousands of dollars. The issue, of course, is that mobile operators do a dreadful job informing their customers of the fees they may be facing. And, while it would be quite easy for the providers to set up some kind of alert (or credit card-style temporary block) if a bill starts to go outside of the "norm," none of the mobile operators seem interested in doing this.Over in the UK they've put in place laws to prevent such ridiculous bill shock situations, and regulators in the US are considering the same... but the lobbyists for the mobile operators, CTIA, are protesting that such rules are "unnecessary." That would be a lot more convincing if people didn't send in stories about ridiculous bills every few weeks. CTIA also claims that "Members have adopted internal practices and procedures to remediate billing concerns directly with their customers," but in practice those "remediation" practices seem to basically be "wait until the press starts paying attention, and then finally back down."
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Filed Under: bill shock, regulations
Companies: ctia
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In each case they basically said to the phone company "I am never going to pay this, ever. So you have 2 choices, either you waive this bill and I remain your customer, or you don't and I switch to another carrier while you piss a lot more money up the wall trying to collect the debt."
And every time the carrier has eventually rolled over and waived the bill.
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