BEFORE THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
Investigation on the Commission's own motion into the operations, practices, and conduct of Pacific Bell Telephone Company (U 1001 C), Pacific Bell Internet Services, and SBC Advanced Solutions, Inc. (U 6346 C) to determine whether they have violated the laws, rules and regulations governing the inclusion of charges for products or services on telephone bills. |
FILED PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION JANUARY 23, 2002 SAN FRANCISCO OFFICE I.02-01-024 |
ORDER INSTITUTING INVESTIGATION
I. SUMMARY
We issue this Order Instituting Investigation (OII) to determine whether Pacific Bell Telephone Company (Pacific Bell), SBC Advanced Solutions, Inc. (SBC-ASI), and Pacific Bell Internet Services (Respondents) have complied with Public Utilities Code section 28901, which governs the manner in which California consumers are billed for products or services on their telephone bills. CSD staff's investigative report and the accompanying victims' declarations demonstrate that Respondents' practices include the following: (1) billing consumers for DSL and/or Internet services that were neither ordered nor received; (2) billing consumers for DSL and/or Internet services that were ordered but not received; (3) billing consumers for DSL and/or Internet services after the consumer requested termination of the service(s); (4) billing by two Respondents for the same DSL and/or Internet service; and (5) billing consumers for services or products that Respondents promoted as free or as less expensive than the charges placed on the consumers' telephone bills.
We will also consider whether Pacific Bell has reported consumer cramming2 complaints against its affiliates to the Commission's Consumer Services Division (CSD) as required by Commission Decisions (D.) 00-03-0203. Ordering Paragraph 2 of D.00-03-020 as modified by D.00-11-015 adopts rules requiring billing telephone companies to maintain accurate and up-to-date records of all customer complaints made to or received by them for charges for products or services provided by a third party, including corporate affiliates. Ordering Paragraph 2 also requires all billing telephone companies to create summary reports of consumer complaints received each month for each service provider and billing agent and provide the report quarterly to CSD.
1 All further statutory references are to the California Public Utilities Code unless otherwise noted. 2 The inclusion of unauthorized charges on a consumer's telephone bill is commonly referred to as "cramming." 3 The Subscriber Complaint Reporting Rules adopted in D.00-03-020 were modified in D.00-11-015.
