FCC To Help Consumers Avoid ‘Bill Shock’

”We are hearing from consumers about unpleasant surprises on their bills,” said Joel Gurin, Chief of the FCC’s Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau.“We’ve gotten hundreds of complaints about bill shock. But this is an avoidable problem.  Avoiding bill shock is good for consumers and ultimately good business for wireless carriers as well.”  According to the FCC, there are many reasons for “bill shock” to occur, and in the EU, carriers are required by law to send a text messages to consumers that approach a set limit.  ”We’re issuing a Public Notice to see if there’s any reason that American carriers can’t use similar automatic alerts to inform consumers when they are at risk of running up a high bill,” said Gurin.

The FCC cited a few examples in their press release:

• “My [cell phone] bill suddenly tripled in one month. . . When I got to looking it over, I noticed that they had charged me for my mobile to mobile minutes. They had advertised free mobile to mobile.”
• “I received a bill this month with over $500 in overage charges which led me to check my statement. I found that on my wife’s and my phones over the past three months we have had 246 calls totaling 304 minutes from [two unknown numbers].”
• “I recently updated my wireless plan in Sept 09. Since I upgraded my plan, my bills have been outrageous. I was informed . . . that my rollover minutes were taken away when I changed my plan. . . . I was never informed this would affect my rollover minutes.”