12. The Commission's Consumer Protection Role and Responsibilities

At the crux of many parties' comments, particularly those of the consumer advocates, was the need for the Commission to do more to protect consumers from unauthorized billing and service provider transfers. The Staff Report addressed these issues by recommending that the Commission (1) increase enforcement staff dedicated to telecommunications issues, (2) increase the time staff is available by telephone to answer consumers' questions and process informal complaints, and (3) ensure the availability of multi-lingual staff. The Staff Report concludes that these recommendations are largely internal management decisions which do not require official Commission action. One further recommendation which would require official Commission action is the use of community-based organizations to augment consumer education efforts.

As a basis for a specific need for expanded consumer education, the Staff report included summaries of four studies commissioned by different sources which suggested that non-English speaking consumers tended to experience higher rates of unauthorized customer transfers. The Staff Report noted that these studies are supported by the Commission's experience where at least one unscrupulous carrier has targeted recent immigrants for its marketing efforts.

The Commission has previously expressed its dissatisfaction with this phenomenon. See Cherry Communications Systems, 62 CPUC2d 656 (D.95-12-019); Communications TeleSystems International, D.97-05-089. The Staff Report recommends using community-based organizations as a means of enhancing consumer education, particularly of consumers that may be targeted for these practices. Greenlining supports using such organizations to reach limited and non-English speaking consumers because effective education must come from groups in which the consumers have faith and confidence. Many of the consumers Greenlining surveyed indicated that they feared retaliation for complaining about unauthorized transfers. Greenlining stated that until consumers understand that they have a viable forum for registering and pursuing complaints, high levels of abuse will persist.

The Commission regards consumer protection as central to its fundamental mission. To better direct its resources in furtherance of this mission, the Commission established a Consumer Protection Task Force which has researched and evaluated many aspects of the Commission's consumer protection role and responsibilities. The Task Force issued a report in which it made several recommendations to improve the manner in which the Commission protects consumers:

· improve public intake and resolution of consumers' informal complaints,

· proactively identify consumer problems and trends in consumer fraud, and take expeditious corrective action,

· streamline consumer protection rules for competitive utility service providers, and

· provide information to the public and to service providers.

Among the specific action items discussed in the consumer protection staff report is the use of community-based organizations to allow the Commission to more effectively leverage resources and the local presence of these organizations. While the report notes that several stakeholders have requested that the Commission implement a plan of using community-based organizations, the report concludes that the Commission must first lay the groundwork for such plans by changing and re-organizing its current management of consumer protection matters.

While we are intrigued with the potential of using community-based organizations to address unauthorized billing and customer transfer issues, the use of these organizations is being considered in another forum. Because that forum will address broader consumer protection matters and not just "slamming and cramming," it is better suited to resolving the substantial funding and oversight issues that such programs create. In the interim, however, we shall order the local exchange carriers to develop and submit a plan for consumer education to enhance awareness of the options currently available to consumers.