When you get promised one rate and charged another, it’s frustrating. When it happens to thousands of customers getting service from the same company all at once, it’s probably a sign of a systematic problem. And one report now says thousands of AT&T and DirecTV customers have been complaining about exactly that for years. [More]
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More Charter Customers Now Being Hit With Controversial ‘Broadcast TV’ Fee
By 2.8.17
As the recently merged Charter and Time Warner Cable finish combining their customer bases, some subscribers are getting their first look at controversial fees that significantly raise their cable bills without being counted as a rate hike. [More]
Court Delays Some FCC Efforts To Lower Costs For Prisoners’ Phone Calls
By 3.7.16
Last fall, a new FCC order sought to reduce the often sky-high prices that prisoners must pay for making phone calls. Those changes were to start kicking in over the coming weeks and months, but today a federal appeals court delayed some reforms while allowing others to move forward. [More]
FCC Puts Caps On The Sky-High Rates Prisoners Pay To Call Home
By 10.22.15
Long-distance and collect calling aren’t something most of us have to think about all that often, anymore. But for the families of the 2.2 million Americans living behind bars, the monopoly contracts that exist on phone companies behind bars, and the exorbitant, sky-high rates that spring from them, are a huge problem — one that the FCC has just taken action to mitigate. [More]
Marriott: It’s Okay, We Only Want To Jam Your Hotspot In The Rooms You Actually Need It In
By 1.2.15
Last fall, Marriott got in trouble for jamming the signals from users’ portable hotspots in one of their conference centers. That’s illegal, and the FCC fined them big bucks for it. Now the hotel chain is trying to make it legal, which has gone over very poorly in the public eye. But wait, Marriott says — we don’t want to stop you from using personal hotspots in your room! We only want to block you from using them in shared spaces where you could actually benefit from having them. [More]
Hotels Taking Cue From Airlines, Making Mountains Of Money From Add-On Fees
By 8.25.14
Airlines have long since discovered that they can make billions by charging consumers for everything, from daring to have luggage to calling customer service. Now, it seems, their travel partners up the line are joining them in the bold new future, as hotels find ever more creative ways of adding to your bill. [More]
