posted
May 30, 2010 by News Gatherer
One out of every six mobile phone users have experienced “bill shock”—an unexpected jump in their monthly service fee that was not prompted by a change in their calling or texting plan. That’s 30 million Americans all told, according to a new survey released by the Federal Communications Commission.
“Nevertheless, we know from our consumer call center that for many, many people in this country, a jump of $20 or $30 or $50 on your cell phone bill is a very significant jump,” Joel Gurnin, Chair of the FCC’s Consumer Task Force told reporters at a Wednesday press conference. These nasty surprises aren’t the kind of multi-thousand dollar hikes that have been making headlines in Europe and sometimes here in the United States. “We did find many people who were experiencing bill shock in the range of $50 or $100 or more.”.
In many instances, they don’t even know that they have one. Bottom line: they often don’t know how much their ETF is. The survey also indicates that half of cell phone users and almost two thirds of home broadband subscribers are lost in the woods when it comes to Early Termination Fees—the price tag for dropping their plan.
“For home broadband users who said they would have to pay an ETF, 64% did not know the amount of the fee.”. “Among personal cell phone users who said they were subject to an ETF, 47% did not know what the amount of the fee would be,” the study added.
“I think the major take home message from all of this is that people don’t know what they should know in order to be able to manage these kind of fees in the best possible way,” Gurnin told reporters. We would like to see some of these best practices become universal practices.”. But it is certainly not yet a common practice. “We do know that there are some carriers out there who are beginning to alert their customers when they’re heading into bill shock territory.
Related Stories
Uncategorized 
