US 'voluntary' code too late for shocking $200,000 bill

Details emerged this week of a sweetheart deal between the US regulator, the FCC, and wireless operators on a voluntary code to inform customers when they approach pre-set limits on their plans, especially data usage, and also when they exceed the tiers and are about to be charged extra. With the ink hardly dry on that overdue piece of news, there emerged a much more sensational headline that one customer was presented with a bill for over US$200,000!

The US woman that received the surprise bill, Celina Aarons, has a plan that usually costs her around US$175 a month. She includes two of her brothers on it, who are deaf and mute, and use smartphones extensively for texting and communicating more easily. What a great sister. Unfortunately, one of the lads took a trip to Canada, and unknowingly mounted up some massive roaming data volumes.

Again, the bill was not inaccurate, it was simply an accurate record of what was consumed by the customer. The fact that it was accrued by someone who could neither speak or hear was all the more reason for making it seem like the wireless operator was a heartless monster, even though it had knocked down the bill to $2,500 and given her six months to pay. There was also no mention that it had to pay the roaming partner for terminating the sessions in Canada.

So, you would think the FCC news was timely, right? Well, not exactly. The FCC took two years to investigate 'bill shock', and the subsequent study found that 84% of Americans who experienced bill shock said they were not tipped off by their wireless company when they were about to exceed their limits, and 88% said they heard nothing from their provider after they went over. Naughty operators I hear you scream. Naughty, or dumb? After all, how difficult is it to monitor bills that exceed normal usage by a whopping 1,000 per cent before sending them out to customers?

This seemingly simple check on a bill run would have thrown up that Ms Aarons had a bill much larger than usual. That would have given a CSR the chance to call her and let her know of the anomaly and try to work out what went wrong and if a solution, like the one eventually reached, could be agrred on. Instead, the press got hold of the news and the operator, and the industry as whole, came out as the bad guys.

Now that everyone has agreed that ‘bill shock’ is not a good thing the US operators have one year to put in place the first two of four automated warnings when data, voice, texting and international roaming thresholds are being reached and passed. They have another year to implement the other two.

Wow, I bet if marketing wanted to push out a new service it would be done in less than two years, yet overcoming the constant and embarrassing issue of ‘bill shock’ doesn’t seem to rate that highly, by the regulator, or the operators themselves.

It must be comforting for the USA to know it has a regulator that acts so quickly to implement 'net neutrality', which means very little to the majority of Internet users, yet takes three years plus to put into effect loose, ‘voluntary’ safeguards for the prevention of over-usage and potential ‘bill shock’ that their European counterparts made law in less than half the time.