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posted by martyb on Monday July 16 2018, @05:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the equal-justice-under-the-law...for-those-who-have-money dept.

Submitted via IRC for Fnord666

FCC plans to stop reviewing informal complaints—filing a formal one costs $225.

Ajit Pai's Federal Communications Commission is proposing that it stop reviewing the vast majority of consumer complaints about telecom companies. Going forward, consumers harmed by broadband, TV, and phone companies would have to pay $225 in order to get an FCC review of their complaints.

The FCC accepts two types of complaints: informal ones and formal ones. It costs nothing to file an informal complaint and $225 to file a formal one; given that, consumers almost always file informal complaints. Besides the filing fee, formal complaints kick off a court-like proceeding in which the parties appear before the FCC and file numerous documents to address legal issues. It isn't an easy process for consumers to go through.

[...] Chairman Pai's proposal to change the informal complaint procedure comes in a larger proposal about formal complaints; the change to informal complaints is explained in a footnote. "We delete the phrase 'and the Commission's disposition' from the last sentence of that rule because the Commission's practice is not to dispose of informal complaints on substantive grounds," the footnote says.

Customers will still be able to submit informal complaints, and telecom providers will still be required to respond to them within 30 days. But consumers who don't get what they want from the ISP will have to file a formal complaint and pay the $225 in order to get the FCC to take any action.

Even if the telecom provider fails to reply to an informal complaint, the only recourse would be filing a formal one. "[T]he Commission will notify the complainant that if the complainant is not satisfied by the carrier's response, or if the carrier has failed to submit a response by the due date, the complainant may file a formal complaint," the proposed version of the FCC complaint rule says. By contrast, the current version of the rule says that "the Commission will contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised. If the complainant is not satisfied by the carrier's response and the Commission's disposition, it may file a formal complaint."

Democrats from the FCC and Congress say the change will make it more difficult (and expensive) for consumers to get complaints resolved. "This is bonkers. It's unacceptable," FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said in a statement to Ars.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/ajit-pais-fcc-wants-to-stop-reviewing-your-complaints-unless-you-pay-225/

But, see also: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/11/no-fcc-is-not-forcing-consumers-pay-file-complaints/.


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday July 16 2018, @02:43PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday July 16 2018, @02:43PM (#707899) Journal

    Mr. Filch, is that you?

    I'm a believer in justice. There's a lot of problems with punishment, and the worst is unfair punishment. It's bad enough when honest mistakes lead to the innocent being punished for something they didn't do. Destructive punishment, like deliberately breaking a toy two children are fighting over, so neither can ever have it again, is worse. The MAFIAA goes for that sort, wants people cut off from the Internet immediately and permanently, on the mere accusation of piracy. (Well, they really want everyone kicked off the Internet, forever, in the religious conviction that it unfairly hurts their profits.) Then there's disproportionate punishment, such as 30 years for downloading a few research papers. Corrupted and bribed judges, referees, umpires and the like are horrible. Think of all the scandals in sports over the years passed off as bad calls and bad officiating. So now the FCC doesn't want to do their jobs and officiate any more, unless they receive a hefty fee?

    But when it's a railroading, when the officials know they have the wrong person and dish it out anyway because they don't care, and they want to put on a big fat lie of a punishment circus for the public, to show how tough they are on crime, or the accused and wrongly convicted knows a few embarrassing things about them and they want to silence that citizen, or they want to fill the cells at their buddies' private prison and extract all the wealth they can from whatever the citizen may have, or all of the above, it's dangerous. Prison industrial complex. They can get away with a little of that, but push it too far, and it will spark a rebellion.

    Look at red light cameras for an example. Increasing safety and punishing wrongdoers were merely the excuses for the real agenda of taking in money. Most telling were the numerous times the operators were busted for doing one of the most unsafe things they could do, shortening the yellow light. Obviously they shortened the yellow to generate more ticket revenue, and safety be damned. I make a point of not patronizing cities that run such scams. Helps when they post signs bragging about their red light cameras.

    Having said all that, I do want to see punishment dished out when it will serve as a deterrent for genuinely anti-social and harmful behavior. But be very careful, very, very careful, that it is a just punishment.

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