A. Scope and Purpose

The purpose of these rules is to protect consumers from unauthorized charges on their telephone bills, specifically, charges for non-communications-related products and services. Effective July 1, 2001, such charges are no longer barred by statute. These rules are intended to give consumers control over whether to use their telephone bills to pay for non-communications-related products and services; to ensure that consumers have sufficient information to make informed choices about this service and, if they use it, to verify charges on their bills; to provide for prompt and effective recourse if they find unauthorized charges or other billing errors related to non-communications charges on their telephone bills; and to protect the confidentiality of information they provide to telephone companies.

These rules apply to: (1) any telephone corporation, as defined in Public Utilities Code Section 234, operating in California, whether providing landline or wireless telephone service, that chooses to open its telephone billing service to non-communications-related products and services; (2) any billing agent that presents such charges to a California telephone corporation on behalf of another entity; and (3) any vendor of non-communications-related products or services that bills for those products or services on a California subscriber's telephone bill, whether it makes billing arrangements directly with the California billing telephone company or indirectly through billing agents. Business entities in all three categories must comply with the applicable rules in this Part. These rules apply to billing for residential telephone service, business telephone service, and combined or undifferentiated residential/business telephone service.

These rules are intended to be consistent with other consumer protection laws that are or may be applicable to billing for products and services unrelated to telephone service. These laws include state and federal laws governing debt collection activity and consumer credit. The Commission's rules governing non-communications-related charges on telephone bills are not intended to deprive consumers of other remedies available under such laws. While our objective in drafting these rules is to make them consistent with the Truth in Lending Act, in particular, to the extent these rules provide any greater protections than those provided by the Act, we believe they are consistent with and therefore not preempted by the Act.