Bowen Charges Phone Companies Killed Phone Bill

   State Senator Debra Bowen (D, Redondo Beach) claims that “telephone company giants Pacific Bell, GTE, Sprint and MCI flexed their lobbying muscle to unceremoniously kill (her) ‘Telephone Consumers Bill of Rights’.” SB 932 was defeated in the Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee on a 1-3 vote, with 8 members abstaining. ”
   Bowen said, “The telephone industry wants deregulation, it wants the ability to hawk service after service to people, but it isn’t interested in providing consumers with any rights or any protections. Consumers are supposed to be the ones who benefit from deregulation, not the ones to get victimized by it, and, unfortunately, the committee was more interested in endorsing the phone companies M.O. than it was in protecting the consumer’s pocketbook.
   “The phone companies essentially have consumers at their mercy, they hold all the cards right now, and they aren’t going to give consumers any rights unless the Legislature forces them to.”
   SB 932 would have legislated ten basic consumer protections, including: 1) A ten-day right of rescission on new services and features; 2) Requiring companies to reimburse consumers for any charges stemming from the inadvertent or unauthorized use of a telephone service or feature; 3) Preventing phone companies from cutting off a customer’s basic local phone service in the event they fail to pay their long distance phone bill; 4) Requiring phone companies to provide free blocking services for non-essential services by a phone company; 5) Requiring the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to create a system so consumers can easily compare services and prices between companies; 6) Requiring all ads for telephone services and products to disclose complete pricing information; and 7) Capping service deposits at two months worth of bills.