Consumers to Telecom Industry: Tell Us the Truth

Free Press, Consumers Union, Media Access Project, Public Knowledge, Consumer Federation of America, and New America Foundation filed comments with the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday encouraging the agency to protect consumers from misleading, confusing and harmful advertising and billing practices by phone, cable and wireless providers. The comments highlight some of the most egregious examples of these practices. Service providers often go to great lengths to create deceptive ads and to impose introductory rates, hidden monthly fees and surcharges that conceal true service quality and cost. Such practices harm consumer choice and limit the effectiveness of competition. The consumer groups argue that current protections are insufficient and urge the FCC to require meaningful, not misleading, disclosure. The misleading practices commonly used by the phone and cable industry include: 1) Internet access services are being labeled with theoretical "maximum speeds," rather than actual speeds. These actual speeds can lag behind advertised rates by 50 percent. 2) New "PowerBoost" services advertise even faster speeds, but do not guarantee that consumers will get faster service despite higher bills. 3) Service providers often deliberately obscure the real cost of services with misleading advertising that hides fees, surcharges, promotional periods, early termination fees and bundling requirements.
www.freepress.net/files/Truth_In_Billing.pdf