Two years ago, 31,345 California residents complained to the state about their phone companies. Finally, someone is listening.
Most of the complaints -- 57 percent of them -- stemmed from billing disputes. Another 17 percent of the complaints had to do with unauthorized fees and services, while 9 percent of the people griped about poor service. The remaining 14 percent of the problems were lumped together by the California Public Utilities Commission under the "other" category.
The PUC responded to these grievances with a list of rules it dubbed the Telecommunications Consumer Bill of Rights, which it will vote on sometime this spring, a PUC spokeswoman said.
The proposal -- the first of its kind in the country -- would in essence force all phone companies (local, long distance and cell-phone service providers) to provide timely and consistent service. That includes a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week hotline with live operators to handle customer inquiries.
The bill would hold the carriers accountable for their marketing and billing practices and even force them to provide phone service to some customers who have not yet paid their bills. Those would be the folks who have filed petitions with the PUC and are waiting for a response.
No doubt, customers who say they were wronged by their phone company are thrilled at the idea of a government mandate for better service.
Some industry observers, however, have scoffed at the proposed rules as yet another example of government's intrusive and needless legislation.
"Wireless is still at the point where it's growing," said Sonia Arrison, a director at the San Francisco public policy think tank Pacific Research Institute. "The networks are still being built. We are still trying to decide what network we are going with. In this process, there will be trial and error. Some people, when they see errors, they complain. That is not a reason for legislation. It's like killing the goose before it lays an egg."
Travis Larson, spokesman for the Cellular Telecommunications & Internet Association, agreed. He said at the very least, California's proposed legislation would prove to be an "administrative nightmare for wireless carriers."
The proposal includes a mandate that all "written solicitations by carriers or their agents" must be "unambiguous, legible and in the equivalent of 10-point type or larger."
"We're concerned about the proliferation of regulation on the state level," Larson said. "If 50 different states write 50 different … regulations, it will wreak havoc on any industry. Imagine if California required everything in 14-point font and double-sided and New York had different regulations regarding the design of bills?"
The PUC, however, said the backlash against phone companies was so overwhelming in 2001 that it warranted some kind of a response. In the last four years, the number of complaints against phone carriers in California has risen dramatically from approximately 11,000 grievances filed in 1999 to about 18,000 complaints in 2000 to an all-time high of 31,345 petitions by the end of 2001.
Most of the complaints were filed by customers who said they were deceptively or erroneously charged for a service.
"You can see that we have tracked those (complaints) and want to put these safeguards in place," a PUC spokeswoman said. "We seem to be up at the forefront in that other states will follow suit and propose similar types of consumer rights."
To Arrison's chagrin, both Arizona and New Mexico are considering similar proposals, although their legislation is "less burdensome" on the industry than the rules introduced in California, she said.
Larson bemoaned the spike in paperwork and bureaucracy the California law would require every time a carrier wanted to reach its customers.
Under the California Telecommunications Consumer Bill of Rights, which is still up for debate before the PUC, all carriers must post their current state tariffs on the Internet, as well as their rates, terms and conditions for service. Any advertisement they release that includes a price for service must also include any geographic limitations and other hidden disadvantages and fees, the PUC said.
Under the proposal, carriers must refund deposits for basic phone service -- with interest -- after one year of receiving timely payments from the customer. All telephone bills "must be clearly organized and may only contain charges for consumer-authorized products and services," the PUC said.
Basic service can't be discontinued on any day that customer service representatives weren't at hand to help customers. Emergency 911 service -- even for cell-phone users -- must work regardless of whether customers have paid their bills.
"Yesterday, my wireless carrier sent me an SMS (short-text message) offering me unlimited SMS for $2.99 a month," Larson said. "All I had to do to receive that offer was to reply to that message. It took me exactly 5 seconds. If California's rules are implemented, it would require the carrier to send an authorization form to the consumer, for the consumer to sign that authorization form and to then send it back to the carrier. That is not consumer-friendly regulation."
