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The fee is nothing new. Formal complaints have always had this fee. The only thing changing is that now, the FCC will simply forward your complaint to whomever your complaint is with. They have 30 days to respond, and the FCC will review the response.
I think this is a good thing. Should help lean the agency up a bit.
Yes, the fee was always there as you said. They forwarded the complaint to the company before. What is new is that the FCC no longer has to review what the company responded with and disposition of the matters raised. They just forward what the judgement rendered from the company to you. If you don't like what the company ruled then you can file the $225 formal complaint.The fee is nothing new. Formal complaints have always had this fee. The only thing changing is that now, the FCC will simply forward your complaint to whomever your complaint is with. They have 30 days to respond, and the FCC will review the response.
I think this is a good thing. Should help lean the agency up a bit.
My experience filing a complaint about Bell (pulling a bait and switch), resulted in Bell calling me in less than 48 hours, "fixing" the problem and applying a hefty discount.That sounds pretty fair. and a heck of a lot better than what the CRTC does here in Canukistan (which is, by the way, introduce enough bureaucracy into everything to the point where your complaint may just be redirected back to you.)
The FCC which is led by Ajit Pai has voted to change the way that it handles consumer complaints. Instead of investigating informal complaints from consumers about companies, it will now forward the complaints to the offending company which have 30 days to respond. If the consumer doesn't receive satisfaction from the ruling of the company, they can now file a formal complaint for a $225 filing fee.
Previously the Commission was required to contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised. Since the Commission no longer has to review a complaint, politicians are fearful that the new languange leaves a consumer's only recourse is to file the $225 formal complaint. This new process is meant to streamline the way complaints are handled by the FCC.
Does the FCC contact me directly about my complaint?
No, the FCC serves your complaint on your provider(s) and the provider is obligated to respond to your complaint within 30 days and provide the FCC with a copy of that response. It is likely that your provider(s) will contact you to attempt to resolve your complaint.
I see no issues with this outside of the filing fee.
$225 is.... rough. LOL
I read nothing crazy about this.
File a complaint to the FCC against company, FCC records the complaint and tracking number given. If the FCC has relevant educational material about said issue it will send it to the person. If not, FCC sends the complaint to company, requiring a written response to both the FCC and person filing the complaint within 30 days. FCC reviews the response and if it's sufficient the complaint is closed. If that's not to the liking of the person you can rebuttal (or file a formal complaint), the FCC will review and see if its sufficient to send back to company (including any new information - which if there is enough, may require a new filing) with the same requirements. If that response isn't enough you can file a formal complaint. Sure, that costs money... but the formal complaint requires both parties to appear before the FCC (like a court proceeding) usually represented by lawyers/experts in communication law and FCC rules. So yeah, a formal complaint sounds like a big deal and not something you do for normal stuff. Company is still required to respond (so they cant just ignore it) and the FCC reviews the response. So there's opportunities for both the FCC and the individual to say "Nope, not good enough" for regular complaints... or, "Yup, sounds good. Complaint closed." which is likely much more common since it appears that common sense...isn't and people tend to complain about everything regardless if it's justified.
The FCC is no longer required to review the complaint. That's what was done away with to streamline the process. Read the links and quotes in my post here. What you just detailed very nicely is how they handled it BEFORE the change. Unfortunately we're not in Kansas anymore.
https://hardforum.com/threads/fcc-v...mer-complaints.1964096/page-2#post-1043726220
...You will be given a tracking number and you will receive periodic emails about the status of your complaint. You may be contacted by an FCC consumer representative if more information is necessary to complete your complaint. When all required information has been gathered, the FCC either responds to you by providing relevant educational material or sends your complaint to the service provider. The provider is required to respond in writing to the complaint within 30 days of receipt of the complaint. The Provider must provide you and the FCC with a copy of the response. The provider will likely contact you to resolve your complaint...
Once a response is received from the provider, the FCC reads the response and if sufficient, closes your complaint...
If you believe the carrier response you received was insufficient, you may send rebuttal information to the FCC by replying to the email that you were sent by the FCC. The FCC will review your information and determine if it is sufficient to send to the provider triggering a new obligation to respond. If your additional information actually constitutes a new complaint, you will be asked to fill out a new form. Another option is filing a formal complaint with the FCC.
If you are not satisfied with the response to your informal complaint, you can file a "formal" complaint. Your formal complaint must be filed within six months of the date of the response to your informal complaint. The current fee for filing a formal complaint is $225.00, but it is subject to change. Formal complaint proceedings are similar to court proceedings. Each party must comply with specific procedural rules, appear before the FCC and file documents that address legal issues. Parties filing formal complaints usually are represented by lawyers or experts in communications law and the FCC's procedural rules.
Nowhere in there do they have to actually have to read your complaint.
yell at people when they have boobies show up on TV?Jesus Christ. FCC needs to take their job more seriously. What do they do anymore after these recent "pivots"?
Nowhere in there do they have to actually have to read your complaint.
If the entire initial process is fully automated - that could probably work if the forms etc. are really well created so that the system will know if all the required information is there and can determine itself whether to respond to the individual by sending educational material or just sending it directly to the company. But If it's the case where they never do the first part and they only stick a number to some submitted form and sent it off to the company... What about the other side of this process?
When the response is received by the FCC and they read it (as required - "Once a response is received from the provider, the FCC reads the response and if sufficient, closes your complaint..."), are we supposed to believe that the FCC, stating that they read the response, is not a requirement to read the response? With that are we to understand that the FCC doesn't know what the complaint is that is being responded to? How can the FCC send it back to the company if it's not a sufficient response? How can sufficient be determined without context? Somewhere in this process the FCC is reading the complaint - the whole process won't work otherwise (the FCC appears to just be removing possibly redundant work at the start of the process, and putting a bit more on the company in question?). And if there isn't a resolution they have a more legal way of handling it that requires both parties to show up in front of the FCC for a fee.
Does the FCC contact me directly about my complaint?
No, the FCC serves your complaint on your provider(s) and the provider is obligated to respond to your complaint within 30 days and provide the FCC with a copy of that response. It is likely that your provider(s) will contact you to attempt to resolve your complaint.
Yes, the fee was always there as you said. They forwarded the complaint to the company before. What is new is that the FCC no longer has to review what the company responded with and disposition of the matters raised. They just forward what the judgement rendered from the company to you. If you don't like what the company ruled then you can file the $225 formal complaint.
The whole FCC review and disposition requirement was removed. Now the FCC can optionally review your complaint if they feel like doing so. But it is up to their discretion if they read it or not due to the language change.
Here is the old way for reference.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2010-title47-vol1/pdf/CFR-2010-title47-vol1-sec1-717.pdf
§ 1.717 Procedure. The Commission will forward informal complaints to the appropriate carrier for investigation. The carrier will, within such time as may be prescribed, advise the Commission in writing, with a copy to the complainant, of its satisfaction of the complaint or of its refusal or inability to do so. Where there are clear indications from the carrier’s report or from other communications with the parties that the complaint has been satisfied, the Commission may, in its discretion, consider a complaint proceeding to be closed, without response to the complainant. In all other cases, 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 in accordance with §1.721 of this part.
The underlined bold part is no longer applicable. This was the part that was removed to streamline the process.
Here is the FCC flowchart of how they handle reviews now. If you can find the section where the underlined text above exists please point it out to us.
https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/articles/202752940-How-the-FCC-Handles-Your-Complaint
It used to be required within the flow chart to "contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised" as you said. In a flow chart X happens and then the result dictates where in the flow chart the next step occurs. You don't follow all the steps every time correct? It is based on conditional statements so some steps may never occur. But when you have an absolute or fixed statement like the one in dispute then it must be executed each time. It cannot be skipped. By changing the language, the interpretation of the rules can come into play in the future.Okay now explain exactly the procedural change? What does "contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised" actually mean? What it meant before is they would basically check up with you to see if the company replied to you and if the matter was resolved. That was it. They can still do that now if they choose, but are not required to. Nothing procedural in the complaint process actually changed though. In either case, to get a resolution from the FCC, you still have to file a formal complaint.
So please where is the sky falling in this change?
Fuck yeah, a bigger barrier to entry for those less fortunate! </s>
USA is weird.yell at people when they have boobies show up on TV?
I live in it, you're not fucking kidding.USA is weird.
It used to be required within the flow chart to "contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised" as you said. In a flow chart X happens and then the result dictates where in the flow chart the next step occurs. You don't follow all the steps every time correct? It is based on conditional statements so some steps may never occur. But when you have an absolute or fixed statement like the one in dispute then it must be executed each time. It cannot be skipped. By changing the language, the interpretation of the rules can come into play in the future.
Take for example Valve. They used to have all types of issues answering consumer questions about Steam. This is just like what the FCC is experiencing. What did Valve do? They hired more workers, upgraded their software to streamline the review process and trained their employees more. Now they can process more complaints in less than a week than what would have taken them a month or more previously. The FCC should have taken that approach rather than throw consumers under the bus by opening up the interpretation of the rules by removing the absolute, fixed statement that they will read each complaint.
That's my issue with the change. Got to find more articles so I might not be able to respond for some hours. I hope that clears up my opinion of the change.
They used to be involved if it an informal complaint because of the wording that was removed.That is a terrible analogy. Valve is addressing complaints about their service. FCC is merely facilitating complaints about ISPs/Carriers. The FCC doesn't get involved unless its a formal complaint. Again, this is much ado about nothing.
They used to be involved if it an informal complaint because of the wording that was removed.
No, they were required to read what the ISP/Carrier said previously and formulate a disposition.Yes, and their involvement consisted of passing the complaint to the ISP/Carrier, and then following up with the complainant about the issue, if it isn't resolved, they advise the complainant to send a formal complaint. The only real change now is that its the complainants obligation to send a formal complaint if their issue is not addressed. That seems extremely reasonable. Again, much ado about nothing.
I see nothing wrong with this. The problem was that people file complaints over just about everything. Millions of frivolous complaints. What are you going to do? Address them all?The FCC which is led by Ajit Pai has voted to change the way that it handles consumer complaints. Instead of investigating informal complaints from consumers about companies, it will now forward the complaints to the offending company which have 30 days to respond. If the consumer doesn't receive satisfaction from the ruling of the company, they can now file a formal complaint for a $225 filing fee.
Previously the Commission was required to contact the complainant regarding its review and disposition of the matters raised. Since the Commission no longer has to review a complaint, politicians are fearful that the new languange leaves a consumer's only recourse is to file the $225 formal complaint. This new process is meant to streamline the way complaints are handled by the FCC.
Does the FCC contact me directly about my complaint?
No, the FCC serves your complaint on your provider(s) and the provider is obligated to respond to your complaint within 30 days and provide the FCC with a copy of that response. It is likely that your provider(s) will contact you to attempt to resolve your complaint.
We already pay the government through taxation. Why do we have to pay them twice?I see nothing wrong with this. The problem was that people file complaints over just about everything. Millions of frivolous complaints. What are you going to do? Address them all?
You need a system where the two most important things happen:
1) The company who is being discussed needs to be alerted of the complaint. This allows them to be aware of the issue.
2) If it's a serious issue, put your money where your mouth is and pay the US government to look further into it.
$225 isn't much for serious complaints.
Handling complaints from the internet is not their primary duty. They will still be handling their primary duty with taxes dollars.We already pay the government through taxation. Why do we have to pay them twice?
Why does the manner in which a person submit a request matter? So senators shouldn't accept requests over the phone, email, or read comments on their own website because it is not their primary duty?Handling complaints from the internet is not their primary duty. They will still be handling their primary duty with taxes dollars.