White House Wants to Crack Down On Hold Times, Subscription Cancelation Delays
The FCC is considering rules to make it easy to cancel subscriptions and talk to human representatives.
August 12, 2024 – The White House announced Monday the launch of its “Time is Money” campaign that will crack down on ways corporations add excessive paperwork and hold times to consumers.
“Americans are tired of being played for suckers,” said the White House, claiming that excessive paperwork, hold times and general aggravation were an unnecessary headache and hassle to people’s day and degraded their quality of life.
“Companies often deliberately design their business processes to be time-consuming or otherwise burdensome for consumers in order to deter them from getting a rebate or refund they are due or canceling a subscription or membership they no longer want – all with the goal of maximizing profits,” claimed the press release.
The Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule in March 2023 that, if approved, would require companies to make it as easy to cancel a subscription or service as it was to sign up for one. The agency is currently reviewing comments to this click-to-cancel action. The cable industry, led by NCTA – The Internet & Television Association, has fought the FTC’s proposal, saying it could cut consumers off from discounts they enjoy.
As part of the initiative, the Federal Communications Commission was said to be rolling out an inquiry into whether to extend similar requirements to the communications industry, said the White House. It was not clear if the FCC’s click-to-cancel rules would duplicate in some respects the FTC’s effort.
To reduce long hold times on phones, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an independent federal agency, was intending to initiate a rulemaking that would require companies to allow consumers to talk to a human representative by pressing a single button. The FCC was also to launch an inquiry into whether it needed to adopt similar rules for customers of phone and internet companies.
Other actions of the initiative would encourage the FTC to stop companies from using endorsement programs to generate fake consumer reviews, limit the use of chatbots online and require health claims to be supported online, among other things.
In March, President Joe Biden released an executive order to address junk fees, described as hidden and additional fees applied to a paid service. Since then, the FCC has proposed several measures to tackle the issue in for cable and satellite TV subscribers.
