FCC: Wireless inquiries to agency up 450% on 'bill shock' issue : But few bill shock complaints

It’s amazing where a little publicity will get you. The Federal Communications Commission reported that inquiries to the agency around wireless issues increased more than 450% in the fourth quarter. The agency said 83% of the inquiries were related to bill shock. Total inquiries reached 18,311, compared to 3,282 in the third quarter of 2010.
However, very few of the inquiries were actually bill-shock complaints, CTIA pointed out. “During a period in which the FCC affirmatively sought ‘bill shock’ complaints, it is telling that ‘bill shock’-related complaints totaled just 416, or approximately one per million wireless lines. In fact, ‘bill shock’-related complaints amounted to six-tenths of one percent (0.6%) of wireless-related complaints for the year. With 17 million new wireless additions in 2010, this means that the number of billing and ‘bill shock’-related complaints per subscriber actually decreased during the year,” said Brian Josef, assistant vice president, regulatory affairs for CTIA.
The FCC published results from a survey in May saying one in six people had experienced “bill shock,” that is they were surprised by a wireless bill. CTIA, which represents U.S. carriers, discounted the survey, noting only 13% of the 3,000 people surveyed by the FCC said they experienced unexpected increases in their wireless bills from month to month, including increases as small as $1.
In October, the FCC issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would require carriers to alert customers when they are approaching or over their monthly allotments of minutes or data; when they are about to incur roaming or international charges and would require providers to clearly disclose any tools to set usage limits or review usage balances. The FCC also is seeking comment on whether carriers should be required to offer the option of capping usage based on consumer-set limits.