More loss of personal responsibility in America

[Anonymous]

The administration wants to force cellphone companies to warn users when they have used up their minutes, even though they signed a contract that plainly states how many minutes they have and what the overage fees are. Democrats are really ruining this country.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/13/technology/13shock.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

[Anonymous]

This seems like a good idea to me.

[Anonymous]

How is requiring a cell phone company to notify a customer about overages "ruining" the country?

[jsteele]

We should demand our right to exceed our minutes without knowing about it. Nothing is more American then getting a monthly bill that is hundreds of dollars more than you expected.

[Anonymous]

Seriously? THIS is what is ruining our country?! I guess we need to start a few more wars or go fire some more people cuz I'm not sure this will do the trick!

[Anonymous]

No. It is not the cellphone company's responsibility to keep track of your minutes. If you go over your minutes and keep talking you should be charged. If you want unlimited minutes then pay for it.

[Anonymous]

If you are concerned about money, you should not have a cell phone, you should not have cable TV, you should not have a car, you should not be eating out. The list can go on and on, and you can have the government warn you every time your power bill is getting to high, your bank account too low, your weight too high, etc etc

You can’t govern stupidity, trust me I know I am stupid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. It is not the cellphone company's responsibility to keep track of your minutes. If you go over your minutes and keep talking you should be charged. If you want unlimited minutes then pay for it.

It's part of American culture to protect the consumer. Under contract law, historically, a merchant generally has been held to a higher standard than a consumer when it comes to entering and enforcing contracts. The merchant is considered an industry and subject matter expert when it comes to his own business, and that creates an inherent disadvantage between to the parties. Consumers aren't expected to be experts. They are just held to a "reasonable person standard." That "legal culture" has become part of the regulatory framework of government. I haven't followed this particular issue closely because I never go over my minutes, so I don't really care about it. But the FCC must have determined that a legitimate public interest is served in doing this, and that it somehow protects a customer who is at an inherent disadvantage when it comes to understanding contractual terms. Whether any of us agree with that is another issue. But the government has a right (and many think a responsibility) to level the playing fields when people are suffering significant harm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. It is not the cellphone company's responsibility to keep track of your minutes. If you go over your minutes and keep talking you should be charged. If you want unlimited minutes then pay for it.

Yes, actually they have to track that in order to bill you. So what is so hard about letting you know when you go over? It seems silly not to.

[Anonymous]

I vote for phone companies not to have to keep track of my minutes. Can't I just tell them how much I owe them at the end of each month? I promise I will never go over the limit if they don't keep track of my minutes.

[Anonymous]

Seems like a waste of time to me. Federal gov't spends lots of time passing laws that are waste of time -

Keeps the American public bickering like little children so we can't focus on the big picture.

[Anonymous]

12:31 has it right. It's a pain in the neck for us to keep track, while they do it automatically. I periodically get advertising messages from AT&T, so it's clearly no problem for them to send a message now and then.

However, I don't mean to disparage OP. It is clearly a natural Republican urge to protect corporations from any possible inconveniences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a waste of time to me. Federal gov't spends lots of time passing laws that are waste of time -

Keeps the American public bickering like little children so we can't focus on the big picture.

Do you intuitively know how many megabytes of data you have downloaded so far this month? Could you tell me how much data is involved in transmitting this page? Thought not.

The carriers already provide this on their web site and via phone. It is a trivial IT project to text you or email you when you are reaching limits. Trivial. It took me two people working for two months to do something similar in our corporate environment.

The reason that the phone companies object is that they know people can't estimate their usage, and it's impractical to keep looking it up. So they hope you will go over so they can charge you a bundle because you will accidentally go over. It is totally preventable if the consumer has up to date information.

So if you are a free market conservative, this is about providing transparency and not allowing inefficiencies by obscuring information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems like a waste of time to me. Federal gov't spends lots of time passing laws that are waste of time -

Keeps the American public bickering like little children so we can't focus on the big picture.

Do you intuitively know how many megabytes of data you have downloaded so far this month? Could you tell me how much data is involved in transmitting this page? Thought not.

The carriers already provide this on their web site and via phone. It is a trivial IT project to text you or email you when you are reaching limits. Trivial. It took me two people working for two months to do something similar in our corporate environment.

The reason that the phone companies object is that they know people can't estimate their usage, and it's impractical to keep looking it up. So they hope you will go over so they can charge you a bundle because you will accidentally go over. It is totally preventable if the consumer has up to date information.

So if you are a free market conservative, this is about providing transparency and not allowing inefficiencies by obscuring information.

I'm not a free market conservative, and I think it's great that a company wants to do this - I think they should.

What I don't think is great is that the federal government should MANDATE that a company do this. I also don't think the federal government should be mandating what I eat, what I drink and who I have sex with.

But that is another fight for another day.

[Anonymous]

So you're OK with abolishing the Consumer Safety Administration, so that you never learn how much lead is in your kids' toys?

You're OK with abolishing the FDA, so you never learn how much sugar is in your cereal, or how much saturated fat is in that MacDonalds meal?

Maybe we shouldn't require credit card companies to disclose the interest rate you are paying, at an annualized rate that makes sense to you?

Because believe me, without government regulations, none of this would happen voluntarily. An informed consumer is the backbone of a capitalist society, and there is only one way to get information that companies might view hurting sales: compel that it be disclosed.