Carriers Charged With Misleading Ads, Charges
SOAB
what! they didn't include their mandatory cost recovery fee for government mandates in their headline, and now a government agency is pressing charges, I can understand a lawsuit for unsolicited text messages being charged by the carrier, but come on what type of business doesn't do this, will the car dealerships be sued for talking fast at the end of their commercials about the hidden costs of buying a car? what next?
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pcrisp07 said:
what! they didn't include their mandatory cost recovery fee for government mandates in their headline, and now a government agency is pressing charges, I can understand a lawsuit for unsolicited text messages being charged by the carrier, but come on what type of business doesn't do this, will the car dealerships be sued for talking fast at the end of their commercials about the hidden costs of buying a car? what next?
Anything that increases the chances of consumers not getting screwed is okay with me.
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muchdrama said:pcrisp07 said:
what! they didn't include their mandatory cost recovery fee for government mandates in their headline, and now a government agency is pressing charges, I can understand a lawsuit for unsolicited text messages being charged by the carrier, but come on what type of business doesn't do this, will the car dealerships be sued for talking fast at the end of their commercials about the hidden costs of buying a car? what next?
Anything that increases the chances of consumers not getting screwed is okay with me.
I second that "muchdrama"
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That's all well and good and nobody will argue against sticking it to the big guy, but doesn't that just protect stupid people?
In 6th grade math we were given a piece of paper with 20 questions/instructions. The headlined instructions said "Read all questions before writing your answer down" and half of the class would fill everything out until they got to the last instruction which was something to the effect of "do not answer any of the questions"
The thing is no matter what you do stupid people will always be stupid. no matter how many helmets you put on them.
In 6th grade math we were given a piece of paper with 20 questions/instructions. The headlined instructions said "Read all questions before writing your answer down" and half of the class would fill everything out until they got to the last instruction which was something to the effect of "do not answer any of the questions"
The thing is no matter what you do stupid people will always be stupid. no matter how many helmets you put on them.
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While part of me whole-heartedly agrees with you. The other part of me thinks that this society really doesn't need dumbed-down anymore than it already is. If you don't research something, and "read the fine print" like we've all been told/taught over and over again, then it's your fault. Do people really need everything spoon fed to them? More and more each day I'm thinking they do...sadly.
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Rathrok said:
While part of me whole-heartedly agrees with you. The other part of me thinks that this society really doesn't need dumbed-down anymore than it already is. If you don't research something, and "read the fine print" like we've all been told/taught over and over again, then it's your fault. Do people really need everything spoon fed to them? More and more each day I'm thinking they do...sadly.
I understand where you're coming from, Rath. I just hate small print as much as the next guy.
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Hey, just as long as you don't start suing anybody and everybody for fine print... then the carriers/vendors/etc that are getting sued will simply raise the cost of their goods/services as we all know they won't absorb the cost themselves. Carriers these days have more fine print than buying a damn car, and the car is a bigger and longer term investment.....
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Cell phone companies use fine print like "with 2 year agreement" or "after mail in rebate". A car company says "$10,000 OFF BRAND NEW TRUCKS" then in the fine print you see that it only applies to 2 trucks on the lot and those are last years models that have never sold and they are giving up everything just to get it off the lot. That a lot bigger thing to me, but either way, they put the eye catchers in big print and all the details in the fine print, but it's all there.
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That brings to mind a very valid point. While I don't think that the government should be inferfering as much because I really think that people shouldn't be so bloody stupid, the sad fact remains that they are, by and large, idiots. I have had far too many people calling in to whine and moan because they didn't read the fine print when they ordered something... People who at the last minute changed their mind and even though they are aware of the rules expect us to change them just to suit them. These people unfortunatly make up the vast majority of the population. God I sound like my dad.
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For some reason, people have become accustomed to getting their way and being spoiled to the fact that they can gripe, yell and raise hell long enough till people give in just to shut them up. It's all Burger King's fault. They whole "Have it your way" campaign has ruined this country. 🤣
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That wasn't just Burger King. Every company that pretends to care about what the customer wants does it, because frankly to make money you have to pretend the customer is right. Which they almost never are. But it makes a lot worse than spoiled, it makes them think that they can treat people however they want because their money is worth more than anything else. and employees are bound to that standard because we all have to keep up that facade.
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Car commercials aren't really a direct analogy. That would be more like a carrier putting their entire T&C in every ad.
Personally, I think that cell phone companies should be forced to give non-tax "regulatory" fees equal prominence in advertising, because they are in actual fact, a part of the cost of service.
This is something that carriers try to hide, and their representatives frequently lie about, claiming that the fees are actually taxes, or otherwise government imposed.
Personally, I think that cell phone companies should be forced to give non-tax "regulatory" fees equal prominence in advertising, because they are in actual fact, a part of the cost of service.
This is something that carriers try to hide, and their representatives frequently lie about, claiming that the fees are actually taxes, or otherwise government imposed.
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Actually some of those "regulatory fees" vary in each area. If those were put in the ads it would have to be listed for every city/county and would make for a very long and boring ad.
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what happened to see store for complete details or call 1800tojoinin. I guess that is not good enough. We are all adults here and the industry shouldn't have to treat the consumer like a baby. The info is all there just ask for the details. I know that i ask and make sure i know everyhting before i sign two years of my life away and let someone run my credit.
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Quite frankly, the average American consumer finds anything that's not in the five words or less on an advertisement unbearably impossible to read: either poor eyesight, easily bored, or just plain lazy.
They sure don't put forth the effort to read, but boy howdy do they go through such great effort that it gives them an aneurysm to complain to CSRs about it.
Though I do think (think, as in don't care either way but it'd be nice) the following:
1). Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee should be garnered through rate plans, not through a separate charge. Wireless companies like Cingular make well over 50 million dollars if every month they bill all their customers $1.25 a month. That's a 600 million dollar income a year, and a lot of that is...
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They sure don't put forth the effort to read, but boy howdy do they go through such great effort that it gives them an aneurysm to complain to CSRs about it.
Though I do think (think, as in don't care either way but it'd be nice) the following:
1). Regulatory Cost Recovery Fee should be garnered through rate plans, not through a separate charge. Wireless companies like Cingular make well over 50 million dollars if every month they bill all their customers $1.25 a month. That's a 600 million dollar income a year, and a lot of that is...
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The Federal Excise tax was imposed on telephone lines at a fixed rate of 3% in 1898 to fund the Spanish-American war.
That was a hundred and seven frickin' years ago.
That was a hundred and seven frickin' years ago.
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Now it means you are elite, you have something that not everyone has it and you are richer than everyone else, and because of it, you have to pay. stop complaining, you are richer than you should be.
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Maybe it's being used to help with out current military commitments. If that's the case, I have no problem paying it.
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I remeber being utterly disgusted one day when I opened my Verizon bill and saw all the ad-on fees. I can still rather clearly recal thinking that they could get away with charging me for anything and because the bill was so un-clear I wouldn't know where to protest. (Though when I got ready to leave Verizon they were very nice about it and even pro-rated my last month which surprised me.) However when you sign up for Service with T-Mobile they are very clear to tell you about the "Regulatory Programs Fee" which is the only one they actually tack on.
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Most people don't notice the breakdown of the regulatory fees on the bill. On a streamline bill (the standard bill that VZW sends out) the breakdown of the regulatory charges are just below the breakdown of the mins and this is usually on the back of a page, which a lot people don't think to look at.
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First of all, Cingular wireless doesn't do 1.25$ out of every customers every month. It's a lot less than that. Most of you guys actually beleives that wireless carriers have it has easy as the wireline carrier. THERE is a big scam.
Now, anybody here remember the old Goodwill programm on TDMA. I don't know if you have it on the orange side, but basically, the system would calculate the average "courtesy" credit limit we could offer to a customer without hurting daddy Stan pocket money. The system usually predicted a goodwill point (a certain percentage according to the tenure of the cust) and a point zero profit (the total profit over the contract lenght minus every cost related to offering the service and supporting it/ that means minus ...
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Now, anybody here remember the old Goodwill programm on TDMA. I don't know if you have it on the orange side, but basically, the system would calculate the average "courtesy" credit limit we could offer to a customer without hurting daddy Stan pocket money. The system usually predicted a goodwill point (a certain percentage according to the tenure of the cust) and a point zero profit (the total profit over the contract lenght minus every cost related to offering the service and supporting it/ that means minus ...
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This forum is closed.
