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Banking & Consumer Affairs panel advances bill barring extra billing after mid-cycle cancellations
Summary
The Banking & Consumer Affairs Subcommittee voted 5-0 to send House Bill 141 to the Commerce Committee. The bill would prohibit providers from charging an additional billing cycle when a customer cancels service during the first half of the billing period; it applies to telephone, cable, internet and broadband services.
The Banking & Consumer Affairs Subcommittee voted to advance House Bill 141 to the Commerce Committee after a brief discussion and a 5-0 recorded vote.
Representative Hale summarized the bill, saying it “ensures that consumers are not unfairly charged for services that they're no longer using, by prohibiting the providers from billing for an additional cycle when cancellation occurs in the first half of a billing period.” He said the measure covers telephone, cable, Internet and broadband services and added, “we've talked to Comcast and all them. They're all good.”
The clerk recorded a 5-0 vote to send the bill to the Commerce Committee. The committee chair said House Bill 141 will proceed to the next committee for further consideration.
Committee members also handled housekeeping items. House bills 630, 223, 668 and 565 were taken off notice and will not be heard by this subcommittee at this time. Several bills were postponed: House Bills 719, 1,132 and 145 were rolled one week; the committee also postponed House Bills 772, 420, 316 and 1,216 to the next meeting. Two bills—House Bills 420 and 316—were described in the meeting as being rolled "to the hill." Details and sponsors for the rolled and off-notice bills were not specified during the session.
The meeting was brief; the chair recessed for two minutes to try to gather additional sponsors and then adjourned after rolling remaining items to the next session.
