DRA believes that the Commission should do more to protect the consumers in California. The Commission has determined that competition for telephone services is strong enough that carriers will improve their services and customer practices for fear of losing those customers. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. Instead of improving the customer experience, the larger carriers have let the quality of their service drop and increased rates.
Complaints
If you have a complaint about your telephone bill or services and talking with your utility company does not resolve the problem, you can file a complaint with the CPUC. Please visit the CPUC's utility complaint center for more information.
Advocacy
DRA is actively participating through formal written comments to get the best outcome for consumers in the following proceedings: Service Quality Rulemaking, the Rulemaking on the needs of Californians with limited English proficiency, and the Consumer Protection Initiative on cramming. DRA also is engaged in lobbying CPUC decision makers on these issues:
Service Quality Standards
The Service Quality Rulemaking (SQ OIR) seeks to adopt a service quality regime consistent with the Commission’s URF goals that: rely on competition, promote development of new technologies in a technologically neutral manner. This proceeding was initiated in 2002 and the last comments were filed two years ago. A proposed decision has been issued in the SQ OIR that adopts several of DRA’s recommendations, including a repair interval standard, publication of service quality results, access to live operators when you call the phone company, wireless coverage maps. Have you been a victim of your phone being out of service for a long period of time? The majority of Californians suffer from the longest service outages in the country. We are striving to implement rules that will force an improvement in service quality. For more information on DRA’s advocacy work on Service Quality, please contact DRA.
Limited English Proficiency (LEP)
Are you confused because English is your second language? Telephone companies recognize the huge growing population of Californians with limited English proficiency (LEP). The LEP population is often victim to unscrupulous marketing tactics and outright fraud by many in the telephone industry. The Commission Decision in the LEP case will make it easier for those customers to receive fair treatment. DRA’s advocacy and lobbying with other consumer groups led to this outcome, despite the resistance of the telephone industry. Now, any telephone company that markets in a particular language must provide live customer service in that language. For more information on DRA’s advocacy work on LEP, please contact DRA or visit LEP Consumers and Language Access.
Cramming
Are you getting charges on your phone bill for services you didn’t order? Are you getting charges on your phone bill for things you didn’t order? If so, you, like many others, may be the result of cramming. Nowadays this affects mostly wireless customers. Many of these telephone companies don’t want to report to the Commission about these complaints. One reason may be that they are part of the food chain, earning up to 40% for these charges on your bill. We are fighting to bring these complaints to the Commission. For more information on DRA’s advocacy work on Cramming, please contact DRA or visit Cramming Reporting.
Consumer Protection Highlights