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Dear 'exec',
After a roundabout discussion with one of SE's support staff, who was at least polite, I've been referred to this email address to post my concerns about the Regulatory Compliance Fee on my monthly invoice.

The ticket thread is here:
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Overall, I am not satisfied with the official explanation; essentially,
"The fees, Regulatory Compliance Fee and Federal Regulatory Fee, combined before the change in regulation (3.39+3.97) amounted to 7.36. Now that the fee was simplified to just the Regulatory Compliance Fee it went down to 6.30--that's where the savings is.

All of that 5.95% is being used to cover extensive increases in cost directly associated with regulatory compliance."

This explanation is not satisfactory considering, "...despite one fee being dropped, your current charges have not been halved. Surely, moving fees from one name to another is a type of accounting trickery SE should be above.

Needless to say, 'regulatory compliance' doesn't actually say a whole lot. What other (non-Federal?) fees specifically are to blame for this burden?"

As also mentioned in the referenced ticket thread, Verizon and Bell South have recently abandoned these fees, pointing even more to the invalidity. I would hope SE could do the same.
Regards,

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...when the government stopped requiring FUSF on broadband connectivity, we were able to pass on some of that savings to customers, but not all.

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...while the FCC eliminated the FUSF fee for DSL, at the same time, they instituted a new requirement that we begin paying into the FUSF fund for VoIP. So you see, this is a dynamic environment. In addition, the FCC has instituted numerous regulatory requirements related to E911, CALEA, and general reporting. These new requirements, especially E911, were rapidly implemented by the FCC, giving industry little time to plan or design automated compliance systems. While large monopolies can easily absorb these additional costs until such systems are in place, smaller competitive voice
and data providers like Speakeasy cannot.

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I sincerely hope this adequately addresses your concerns. It is certainly a dynamic environment: the internet. It is even more interesting when the government begins looking for ways to harvest additional revenue from it.

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I *will*, however, now think twice about recommending them to my smaller clients or non-profits; I'll also tell anyone considering them to shop carefully and make sure ALL fees are included in the quote.

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Recently, the Federal USF fee was discontinued. SpeakEasy communications previously passed on this fee as through a "federal compliance" fee as part of the monthly billing structure. After the FUSF was lifted, SpeakEasy deleted the FUSF line item from the monthly bills, creating a new, combined "regulatory compliance fee". This new fee is roughly the same as the previous separate "compliance" fees plus the FUSF fee. The only difference in this combined fee is approximately a 1% total fee reduction (versus the expected reduction by the amount of the FUSF removal). The overall description of the fee is worded to suggest that it is related to taxes on the line, however, the overall change in fees suggests that, while they are intimating the use of the fee for taxes that SpeakEasy is, instead, pocketing the fee. Essentially, they have instituted a rate hike through a fee so that they can misrepresent their subscription rates in public advertising. Requests for clarification on the fee have been met either by silence or obsfuscation.

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Even the old Baby Bells decided that this was too slimy a thing to do to their customers

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said by bhan261 :

Good to see people revising their reviews of SE. I modified mine last week. Remember, you have to change your selections in the radio buttons at the top, as well.

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I've had SpeakEasy for a number of years now. They used to be a good company to do business with. It's why, after several moves, I still have them. Unfortunately, it seems that SpeakEasy's business priorities have changed. If you are looking for residential service, is simply would NOT recommend them. I've not yet changed providers mostly due to not having time to do so.

While they've always been more expensive than their competition, they used to provide value for this price differential. The SpeakEasy forum used to be an example of this: they used to have employees participate in the forum to help customers. This policy seems to have ended in July of 2006. They've dropped a number of other things that made them "worth it."

Lastly, they like to advertise one price for their service then absolutely PILE on miscellaneous fees. They then like to attribute these fees to "compliance recovery" costs. Most egregious of these was with the recent repeal of the USF. Somehow, even though the USF was removed, some new "compliance fee" was introduced that pretty much offset this reduction. Even the old Baby Bells decided that this was too slimy a thing to do to their customers

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2006-09-05 19:56:03
Speakeasy is removing/has removed the 3.75% Federal Regulatory Fee and increasing the combined Regulatory Compliance Fee from 3.2% to 5.95%, but the combined total will go from 6.95% to 5.95% (i.e., will be reduced by 1%). The fees were combined to simplify the bill. Also, to save you a few amount of money in taxes.

In the event that Speakeasy's pricing increases, your monthly recurring charge will remain at the price set during order placement or special billing agreement for 12 months following your Activation Date, but this excludes applicable state and federal taxes, as stated in the ToS(speakeasy.net/tos). So, the changes are not in violation of the ToS.

Thanks,
Mark

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It is not an arbitrary amount. There are over 4500 government agencies that assess taxes and fees. As these are assessed to us, we pass them on. This fee sometimes goes up and sometimes goes down. We receive quarterly adjustments from all agencies and adjust this rate accordingly. This fee is covered as well in out Terms of Service found at www.speakeasy.net/tos which you agree to by using our service.

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There is a flat administrative add on that does not change quarterly.

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Yes, that is exactly what I am telling you.

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