NY Attorney General Socks Frontier Over ETFsDSL operator failed to mention ETFs existed...
09:27AM Tuesday Oct 06 2009 by Karl Bodetags: dsl · business · consumersNew York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has announced that his office has reached an agreement with Frontier Communications, who'll have to pay consumers $50,000 for failing to properly inform them about early termination fees (ETFs). In a
statement, the AG says they've been investigating the telco since early 2009 after fielding consumer complaints. According to Cuomo's office, Frontier was selling bundles under one, two or three year contracts, but wasn't informing customers that there were associated penalties for canceling early:
The Attorney General’s investigation determined that consumers who purchased one-year bundle agreements were never provided with written notice of the term or the existence of an early termination fee. The investigation also uncovered that consumers were not notified in their monthly billing statement that their agreements contained early termination fees. Therefore, many consumers first learned about the fee only after they cancelled their service with Frontier and the charge appeared on their final bill.
According to the AG's office, in at least one instance Frontier auto-renewed a customer into a long-term contract, then hit them with an ETF when they tried to cancel out of the new agreement. If you're an impacted customer, you should be notified automatically. If not, you can download a claim form from the
NY AG website. Frontier, meanwhile, has agreed to clearly highlight their use of ETFs while marketing bundle promotions to customers, and on existing customer bills.
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