How the FCC solves consumer problems—well, it doesn’t, really

The Federal Communications Commission's extremely hands-off approach to broadband-customer complaints has alarmed Rep Mike Quigley (D-IL). Rep Quigley wrote a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in Aug after learning of a Frontier customer who was forced to pay a $10-per-month rental fee for a router despite buying his own router. It turns out that the FCC hasn't proactively forwarded any broadband-billing complaints to the Federal Trade Commission despite the agencies' working agreement. But Chairman Pai's initial response to Rep Quigley didn't reveal that tidbit. Chairman Pai's response letter told Rep Quigley that consumers filed 450 informal complaints about broadband-equipment rental fees in the past year and that "nearly all" of them were "served on the relevant provider for a response." Chairman Pai's letter also said that complaints about "unfair or deceptive billing practices by Internet service providers have been referred to the FTC."

After the exchange of letters, Rep Quigley's staff followed up with the FCC to find out how the agency decides whether to forward complaints to the FTC. The answer from FCC staff was that it hasn't forwarded any billing complaints to the FTC without being asked to do so first. The FCC apparently only forwarded complaints to the FTC when the FTC asked for a set of complaints about particular companies. "At no point has the FCC actually sent, of their own volition, a single complaint to FTC for enforcement," a Quigley senior staff member said. "So essentially what the FCC is saying is, 'If you complain to us, we have to send a letter [to your ISP] that recognizes that we got a complaint within 30 days. And if we do that, that's the extent of our responsibility.' Now, the second part of that is, [the FCC says that] 'If we think it's a really big deal and should rise to the level of enforcement, we'll send it to the FTC.' But [the FCC has] never done that."

The FCC told Rep Quigley's office that, since the Restoring Internet Freedom order, it has referred 4,228 broadband-billing complaints to the FTC but that all of those were specifically requested by the FTC. The FTC asked for those complaints in one case "related to an AT&T unauthorized cellular data plan" and in another "related to a Frontier Internet speed issue," the Quigley staff member said. "Somehow, the FCC has not received a single complaint that they think requires enforcement action or any followup whatsoever, beyond the recognition that they received this complaint," the Quigley staff member said. "When our committee staff heard about this, they were floored. This is certainly not what the FCC initially implied when they responded to our inquiry, and it's pretty alarming."