Beginning in 2009, TracFone began selling supposedly unlimited prepaid data plans for $45 under brands like Straight Talk, Net10, Simple Mobile, and Telcel America, but without clearly disclosing that users who went beyond certain monthly usage thresholds would have their data speeds throttled or cut off entirely. But today, in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, TracFone has agreed to refund $40 million to affected customers. [More]
Government Policy
FTC: Totally Fine By Us If Phone Companies Block Robocalling Numbers
By 1.27.15
Robocalls suck. Everyone hates them. And yet despite decades of trying to deal with autodialers and phone spam, they’re still a big problem. The FCC wants to know if phone companies can block them getting to you. Phone companies say too bad, so sad, the rules mean we can’t block them… but the FTC now disagrees. [More]
FTC Requires Safeway, Albertsons To Sell 168 Stores Before Completing $9.2B Merger
By 1.27.15
Last March Albertsons supermarket owners Cerberus Capital Management and AB Acquisition LLC announced that they would acquire the Safeway chain of stores in a merger valued at more than $9 billion, but as with most deals of such magnitude, the new coupling between the second- and fifth-largest grocers in the United States had to pass regulatory muster before they could proceed down the aisle. Today, the chains announced they would sell 168 stores in eight states in order to make their matrimonial dreams a reality. [More]
Verizon Fined $2 Million For Failing To Investigate Rural Calling Problems
By 1.27.15
Verizon and other operators of copper wire landline service have been accused in recent years of letting these old networks fall into disrepair in order to shift consumers over to wireless and fiberoptic services. It certainly doesn’t help Verizon’s case when the company spends months failing to investigate problems with rural phone service that its own data showed existed. [More]
Marketers Of Green Coffee Bean Weight-Loss Products Must Refund $9M
By 1.26.15
By now we should all be fairly familiar with the saga of Dr. Oz, the supposed “miracle” weight-loss benefits of green coffee bean extract, and the Federal Trade Commission’s mission to put a stop to the craze by shutting down marketers and online sellers that created fake news sites, fake reporters and relied on bogus studies to sell the product. The Commission’s work continued Monday when one such company agreed to pay $9 million in consumer redress to settle charges of deceptively marketing the products. [More]
Cable Industry Asks FCC To Continue Using Outdated “Broadband” Definition
By 1.26.15
Currently, a 4Mbps broadband connection — barely enough to stream a single HD movie and insufficient for accessing higher-definition content or for homes with multiple simultaneous data-heavy uses — is considered “broadband” in the eyes of the Federal Communications Commission, though that should change with the FCC’s plan to redefine broadband as the significantly faster 25Mbps, which would acknowledge both the recent improvements in broadband delivery and consumers’ increased use of web-connected devices. And yet the cable industry is fighting to retain the already outdated 4Mbps standard for broadband. [More]
Changes To TurboTax Lead To Consumer Revolt, Opportunity For Competitors
By 1.23.15
It’s the opening weekend of tax season! If you work an hourly or salaried job, the W-2 form summarizing how much you earned and how much tax you’ve paid is already in your mailbox or will be soon, since the deadline to mail them out is February 2nd. If you plan to use the Windows or Mac version of TurboTax, though, there’s something that you should know before you get started. UPDATE, 1/30: Thanks to this consumer revolt, Intuit is rolling back the changes and will return to the old pricing scheme for next year. [More]
Senators Introduce Bill To Block States From Blocking Public Broadband
By 1.23.15
Congress is just all up in the FCC’s business lately, it seems. Earlier this week, lawmakers in both houses proposed their own version of net neutrality, one that would also strip the FCC of its own authority to regulate broadband in the future. Today, there’s a bill looking to jump into one of the FCC’s other big issues right now: state laws that prohibit communities from developing municipal broadband. [More]
IRS Says Thousands Have Been Scammed Into Paying Bogus Back Taxes
By 1.23.15
Let’s be honest for a moment and acknowledge that not everyone is 100% honest or accurate when filing their tax returns. There are lots of people out there who wouldn’t be shocked to hear from the IRS that they owe more or didn’t pay enough, which is why thousands of Americans have been scammed out of millions of dollars by con artists pretending to represent the IRS. [More]
Verizon: We’re Not Two-Faced, We Just Like To Claim Mutually Exclusive Things Are Both True
By 1.23.15
Verizon has a long history of trying to have it both ways: alternately courting and rejecting regulation, depending on which will most benefit their bottom line. It’s disingenuous, but effective. But now that someone has asked the FCC to investigate Verizon for perjury, Verizon’s fighting back. Their theme? We’re not two-faced. We just like to say a lot of mutually-exclusive things based on who we think is listening. [More]
TSA: 2,212 Firearms Found In Carry-Ons Last Year, And Most Were Loaded
By 1.23.15
Although the average traveler should know by now that flying with guns in your carry-on bag is not going to fly with the Transportation Security Administration, the number of people trying to bring firearms through airport security is going up every year, the agency says in a report today. [More]
NHTSA To Suggest (But Not Require) Sensor-Enabled Brakes For All New Vehicles
By 1.23.15
Consumers could soon have a longer list of recommended safety features to look for when setting out to buy a new car. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration announced plans Thursday to change its vehicle safety rating program to include two sensor-based automatic emergency braking systems, but the agency won’t go so far as to mandate automakers’ use of the systems. [More]
Wells Fargo, Chase To Pay $35.7M For Allowing Illegal Mortgage Kickbacks
By 1.22.15
Federal law prohibits giving or receiving kickbacks in exchange for a referral of business related to a real-estate-settlement service, but for four years a now-defunct title company in Maryland provide cash, marketing materials and consumer information in exchange for referrals. And now the banks have agreed to pay more than $35 million — including $11.1 million in redress to affected consumers — for their sins. [More]
Will New Owner Of Everest University, WyoTech Continue With Old Owner’s Sketchy Practice?
By 1.22.15
When students apply to one of the for-profit schools owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc., they sign away their right to seek any legal action against the company if they’re wronged. Now that CCI is selling off 56 of its Everest and WyoTech campuses, the new owners have a chance to end this anti-consumer practice, but will they? [More]
Senator Calls On Regulators To Take Closer Look At Rent-To-Own Stores
By 1.21.15
To people strapped for cash but looking to make a big-dollar purchase, the idea of financing that item through a rent-to-own store can be tempting. After all, most of us can afford $30/month, but not everyone has $900 on hand. But those monthly payments may go on for years, meaning you’ll pay double or triple the face-value of that purchase by the time you’re done. In the last decade, this rent-to-own model has become increasingly popular, especially among lower-income Americans. Now one U.S. Senator is asking federal regulators to keep a close eye on this retail industry. [More]
FTC: Credit Report Errors Continuing To Linger Years After Being Found
By 1.21.15
Two years ago, a Federal Trade Commission study found a surprisingly large percentage of consumers had discovered, and had corrected, errors on their credit reports. There were also several people who believed there were errors with their reports but had not yet reached a resolution. A new follow-up study from the FTC finds that nearly 70% of these disputes from 2012 are still unresolved. [More]
Today In Terrible Arguments Against Net Neutrality: Monopoly Eras And Fees On Bills
By 1.21.15
It’s been a busy day for tech talk in Washington. Today, both the House and the Senate held hearings on net neutrality and a proposed bill to regulate it. A parade of former regulators, lobbyists, business representatives, lawyers, and consumer advocates sat on Capitol Hill and once again hashed through the debate, while elsewhere in the District, a current FCC commissioner was giving a lunchtime speech about why the FCC shouldn’t regulate at all. [More]
Dish Found Liable For Tens Of Millions Of Calls In Violation Of Federal Telemarketing Rules
By 1.21.15
More than five years after being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for years of allegedly illegal telemarketing calls, Dish Network has been held liable by a federal court in Illinois for tens of millions of calls made in violation of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) beginning as far back as 2007.
[More]
