FCC Record, Volume 2, No. 1, Pages 1 to 409, January 5 - January 16, 1987 Page: 301
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Federal Communications Commission Record
MCI replies in its supplemental filing that NYNEX's
definition of what constitutes "sufficient documentation"
to establish a "dispute" is still flawed. It argues that there
is no reason why a dispute cannot be commenced with a
simple letter by the access customer stating an amount
that the access customer's records indicate should be
owed. MCI explains that all too often the access bill
cannot be reconciled with the customer's records because
the bill includes traffic from past periods or other access
customers. Access customers often keep a running account
of what they should expect to pay to the LEC in
any given month. It would take considerable time, if at all
possible, for the access customer to attempt to dissect an
access bill and determine the LEC errors that were made.
Since the LECs have traditionally refused to provide
useful billing detail that would make meaningful access
bill auditing possible, MCI continues, the access customer
should not have the burden of demonstrating the specifics
of why the access bill is wrong. It represents, moreover,
that access customers have nothing to gain by improperly
contesting bills since abusive use of the billing dispute
mechanism will result in the accrual of substantial interest
charges on the access customer. MCI Supplemental
Comments at Appendix A, p. 5.
ALC notes that the Commission. in Docket No.
83-1145, left the issue of delayed billing open for further
discussion, stating that "if it should appear that problems
of delayed billing are not resolved in the near future, [the
Commission] may reexamine this issue in the context of
future tariff filings." ALC Supplemental Comments at
14-15 (citing Investigation of Access and Divestiture Related
Tariffs, CC Docket No. 83-1145, Phase I, released
Feb. 25, 1985, at B-7). ALC submits that there is merit to
its request for a uniform tariff change equating the "bill
date" to the postmark or mailing date. The requested
change would lend effect to the tariff implication that
access service customers should have 30 days (less mail
transit time) to review and respond to invoices. Id. at 16.
Finally, MCI asserts that it was unable to find US
West's response to its concerns over the assessment of
interest when the dispute is resolved in favor of the
customer and the customer has paid the disputed amount
after the payment date. Id. at 6.
DISCUSSION: Contrary to MCI's contention, we find
that NYNEX's definition of "resolution date" is reasonably
specific and does not adversely affect the rights of
customers to penalty interest. NYNEX defines the resolution
date as the date, inter alia, that it has credited the
customer for any disputed amount, including interest.
Since the customer's monies have been refunded at that
time, there is no need to apply additional interest penalties.
Therefore, we do not believe that NYNEX's definition
arbitrarily permits it to avoid paying interest
penalties.
In contrast, we agree with MCI that NYNEX's definition
of "dispute date" is sufficiently subjective to allow it
to decide arbitrarily the date interest penalties begin to
accrue. As the tariff is currently proposed, if NYNEX
decides that the dispute date is a date more than three
months after the payment date, the customer will receive
interest only for the period starting with the dispute date
and ending with the resolution date. Normally the customer
would receive interest starting with the payment
date. To remedy this problem, NYNEX should have included
in its definition of the dispute date a clear description
of the minimum information needed to file a billingdispute. Accordingly, we reject NYNEX's proposed definition
of "dispute date" as unreasonably vague and therefore
in violation of Sections 61.2 and 61.54(j) of the
Commission's Rules, 47 C.F.R. 61.2, 61.54(j). Until
NYNEX files amended revisions, the dispute date shall be
the date the customer notifies the carrier in writing that it
is disputing a bill.
NYNEX's proposal to reduce from six to three months
the time for filing disputes does not appear to warrant
investigation. This revision does not significantly disadvantage
the ICs because NYNEX will still refund any
monies to the customers for any overpayment, regardless
of when the dispute is filed. The only loss to the customer
for filing after the 3-month period will be the interest
payable for the period starting with the payment date and
ending on the dispute date. The customer will still receive
interest for the period starting with the dispute date and
ending with the resolution date. On the other hand, this
proposal benefits the LECs by helping ensure that the
dispute is filed before possibly pertinent data are either
lost or destroyed.
We do find unreasonable, however, US West's proposal
to eliminate entirely interest payments to customers when
a dispute is resolved in the customer's favor. Since US
West assesses late payment fees upon customers when a
customer does not pay its bill by the payment due date,
see US West 2.4.1(B), we expect that US West, like
other LECs, will reciprocally pay an interest penalty
when a customer has paid a disputed bill that is eventually
resolved in the customer's favor. We therefore
direct US West to apply its provisions for calculating late
payment fees to its calculations of interest penalties.
Last, we agree with Ameritech that this proceeding is
an inappropriate forum in which to consider ALC's and
Comptel's requests that the Commission mandate a tariff
change for all LECs to allow 31 days from the postmark
date of the bill either to render payment or to bring a
dispute to the attention of the LEC. We would expect the
LECs to provide their customers with sufficient time to
review and verify their bills, however. Carriers could
either adopt a proposal similar to that suggested by ALC
and Comptel or adopt a minimum period between the
mailing date and the payment date. We encourage carriers
and customers to cooperate fully either individually or
through industry forums such as the Ordering and Billing
Forum (OBF) to resolve these billing concerns.
SUBJECT: Technical Reference for "C"-Conditioning;
Voice Grade Special Access
TARIFF SECTION: Section 7.2.3.(D)(3)(a)
Ameritech;
Section 7.2.3(D)(5)
-
Pacific Bell.
ISSUES: AT it uses Conditioning features
for switched network interoffice access lines and trunks
(e.g., CCSA and EPSCS) and for two-point and multipoint
channels. AT
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United States. Federal Communications Commission. FCC Record, Volume 2, No. 1, Pages 1 to 409, January 5 - January 16, 1987, book, January 1987; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1597/m1/308/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.