Lawsuit Forces CenturyLink To Stop Charging 'Internet Cost Recovery Fee' (arstechnica.com) 43
CenturyLink has agreed to pay a $6.1 million penalty after Washington state regulators found that the company failed to disclose fees that raised actual prices well above the advertised rates. CenturyLink must also stop charging a so-called "Internet Cost Recovery Fee" in the state, although customers may end up paying the fee until their contracts expire unless they take action to switch plans. Ars Technica reports: "CenturyLink deceived consumers by telling them they would pay one price and then charging them more," Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson said in an announcement yesterday. "Companies must clearly disclose all added fees and charges to Washingtonians." Ferguson encouraged Washington residents "who believe they have received bills that include undisclosed fees to file a complaint" with the state. Ferguson's office said it began investigating CenturyLink in 2016 "after receiving complaints from consumers that their actual bills were more than the advertised price, or the price that they were promised by sales representatives."
Here's what Ferguson's office found: "There were three main fees CenturyLink did not disclose: a broadcast fee of $2.49 per month, a sports fee of $2.49 per month, and CenturyLink's 'Internet Cost Recovery Fee,' ranging from $0.99 to $1.99 per month. CenturyLink charged its Internet Cost Recovery Fee to 650,000 Washingtonians. Of those, another 60,000 were also charged the broadcast and sports fees. These fees alone added up to $7 per month to a television subscriber's bill -- $84 per year. The investigation found that CenturyLink did not adequately disclose additional taxes and fees for its cable, Internet and telephone services." CenturyLink admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to a financial settlement and changes in business practices as part of a consent decree filed in King County Superior Court on Monday. The attorney general's office detailed its allegations in a lawsuit filed the same day.
Here's what Ferguson's office found: "There were three main fees CenturyLink did not disclose: a broadcast fee of $2.49 per month, a sports fee of $2.49 per month, and CenturyLink's 'Internet Cost Recovery Fee,' ranging from $0.99 to $1.99 per month. CenturyLink charged its Internet Cost Recovery Fee to 650,000 Washingtonians. Of those, another 60,000 were also charged the broadcast and sports fees. These fees alone added up to $7 per month to a television subscriber's bill -- $84 per year. The investigation found that CenturyLink did not adequately disclose additional taxes and fees for its cable, Internet and telephone services." CenturyLink admitted no wrongdoing but agreed to a financial settlement and changes in business practices as part of a consent decree filed in King County Superior Court on Monday. The attorney general's office detailed its allegations in a lawsuit filed the same day.
It really sucks when they do this (Score:5, Interesting)
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"no wrongdoing" (Score:4, Informative)
the usa legal system really is due for an overhaul on all levels and applications.
such deals should go out the window, they were guilty and they admitted to it and should have been given a fine and damages - not something to just bargain with them for huge lawyer costs on both sides.
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In short, if you have a problem with a sales tax "sneakily" changing the advertised out the door price, talk to your congressman, not the store.
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Congress doesn't set sales taxes. State legislatures and local governments do that.
Re:"no wrongdoing" (Score:4, Interesting)
The point isn't that businesses shouldn't be able to pass costs on to the customer (which is perfectly reasonable), but that businesses need to make those costs part of the advertised price.
Re: "no wrongdoing" (Score:5, Interesting)
No, its them wanting to charge you for stuff. The money does not go to the feds. Another example: Subscriber Line Charge
Feds say you can charge up to $12/line to cover maintenance on a copper pair. A T-1 PRI is 2 copper pairs (4 wires). Sometimes its delivered over 1-pair HDSL. However these fucking assholes charge for 23 LINES because a pri can have 23 concurrent calls. They are NOT maintaining 23 pairs of fucking copper and they should be ass-raped in the middle of time square for pulling this shit. Yet they get away with it every year.
CenturyLink is now adding USF charges to internet-only circuits. USF is a fee levied against long distance interstate calls and international calls. NOT intrastate and certainly NOT data only loops. This is worse than the subscriber line fee scam. In this case they are misleading you to believe the money is actually going to USAC. It is not. They run their traffic study and only pay USAC based on actual Interdtate LD charges and bundled Unlimited LD services. This is defined as Extortion Under the Color of Authority and it is highly illegal. They need to be ass-raped every day at the strike of 12 in time square for this one.
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Just another Telco... (Score:5, Informative)
CenturyLink (which purchased Qwest, formerly USWest) is like any other Telco.
They have at least a duopoly, and at worst a monopoly, in some ILEC regions.
They have almost free reign in their regions. The competition in some regions is Frontier (sold off from Verizon, formerly GTE).
Frontier has a $4.99/month "You don't have voice with us fee". $600 over the last 10 years in fees because I don't have a voice line with them? And no recourse.
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Sure, and be outvoted by the 90% of people who don’t care.
The cognitive class is only about 30% of the country, and well, do the math. They are out-voted on all matters.
Democracy is idiot-rule (okay, average-rule), and its ease of manipulation is why it’s a favorite of most large corporations. The relatively few “thinkers” in a society will always be out-voted by those who vote based on the number of yard signs they see ... or simple party loyalty.
Hell, even the smart folks can
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I despise Frontier, but this fee actually makes sense. When you get DSL, you're still using a phone line, even if you aren't using it for voice phone service (the DSL signal is carried at frequencies higher than that used for voice service). If their prices assume concurrent DSL and voice phone service, then the only way to equalize DSL-only is to
Re: Just another Telco... (Score:2)
They also acquired Level(3) which makes them an enormous interconnect.
At $6.1m, sounds like they came out ahead. (Score:4, Insightful)
Good Luck Switching Plans (Score:2)
The way CenturyLink retains customers is by ignoring any service change request. If you contact them about a change you want, even a request to just completely disconnect service, the CSR will go along with it and then the company simply does nothing.
I am still probably technically still a customer even though it's over 3 years later since I just gave up and unplugged their copper from my house.
Just last week another collection agency tried to get $180 from me that CLink pretends I owe them. If I had to co
They will comply with this agreement (Score:4, Insightful)
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Unfortunately, true. Had they not thought of that before,they now know about.
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They already sent me 30$, I was pretty surprised to be honest. I haven't had service with them for years either.
Taxes (Score:3)
While you're at it, can you look at the tax collection on the bill? They list tax amounts as well as percentages, without disclosing what the percentage is sourced from. There is NO other values on the bill that match up. On top of that, they list like a 5% here and a 2% there, but is obvious they couldn't have come from the same base source number. The percentages as far as I can tell and the figures they're pulling from are all fucking bullshit.
Also, on the particular bill I was auditing, it was a $25 phone plan, with a bill nearing $50. So yeah, fuck them and their "fees"
Paper Bill Convenience Fee (Score:3)
$1. Keeping SuddenLink away from my CC and bank account numbers...priceless.
Re: Thank the gop (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with legislation despite what you were told. The FCC is a unelected bureaucracy that operated mostly in their own self interest cow-towing to major telecoms. It has nothing to do with political parties. The DNC has done just as much damage in this regard. Both parties signed off on the Patriot Act. Both parties are letting the telecoms fuck you over in exchange for full warrantless access to your info and privacy. Dont let some piece of shit Dem tell you any otherwise. They have just
Are they going after Comast next? (Score:2)
Nobody adds fees, doubles various "taxes" from month to month like Comcast. Sign up for a "fixed price" plan with Comcast and guaranteed your bill will grow almost every month. Of course, if you ever call to ask what all those fees and taxes are and why they keep going up, nobody can answer.
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I went back and forth with T-Mobile on this, finally they agreed I could ask, in writing, from their legal department, what the "fees" were.
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There was a tax on my Comcast bill which went from $0.25 to $0.50 then to $1.00 in a span of 6 months. When I talked with customer service, the line I got was "we don't know, call the government" but they couldn't even tell me exactly which government I should be calling or which actual tax it was (they called it "franchise tax" IIRC). One customer agent even hung up on me, and another asked why I'm wasting their time for less than a dollar. I never bothered engaging legal, just installed an HD antenna and
Even getting caught cheating... (Score:4, Interesting)
...is highly profitable:
Is there any regulatory or financial reason for corporations to stop doing things like this?
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Came to say the same. There is no such thing as a criminal activity in the United States, but there are activities that will land you in prison if you do them without wearing a suit.
Re: Even getting caught cheating... (Score:2)
Just make sure you give up your customers privacy and call records, you will always have a get-out-of-jail-free card. Works for Telecoms, works for Facefuck, works for Google.
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Yep, this.
If you steal a pack of gum, it’s a criminal offense. You can be locked in a cage for this, and you will have a record which may preclude you from employment going forward.
If a company steals the equivalent of a pack of gum from 1,000,000 people, it’s civil. No one is at risk of being arrested, and never will anyone’s freedom be in jeopardy.
Civil for me, Criminal for thee.
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A corporation that cannot profit off their ill-gotten gains is un-American.
Old laws (Score:2)
These fines were written into law ages ago before billion dollar corporations existed. The laws need updating.
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I think you misunderstand. That's not a deterrent, that's a cut of the profit.
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Is there any regulatory or financial reason
If something actually gets settled in court there's a fine plus a cease and desist order. Pay the fine but keep doing the activity and it's contempt of court. Company officers can then spend some time behind bars.
as part of a consent decree
That's the way things usually go. No court order and the company can go right back to doing what they want. The atty general can't send people to prison, so they just start over from the beginning again. Ferguson is too busy counting bullets in magazines to actually do any state business. So don't
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> Company officers can then spend some time behind bars.
This is true in the sense that flaming monkeys *can* start flying out of my ass.
I mean, find the smallest monkey species, build little monkey gliders for them, douse them in lighter fluid, put one of those fashionable earhole-enlargers in my anus for a few months ... it is somewhere in the neighborhood of theoretically possible, and it is more likely to happen than a corporate exec going to jail for stealing from customers via unadvertised fees ...
all century link has to do is (Score:1)
Taxes and Fees... (Score:2)
So is the state going to refund the taxes they collected on that $7 per month?