RA consumer protection consultation set to close
The Regulatory Authority of Bermuda is within days of closing consultation on consumer protection rules — including whether people should get refunds for unplanned electricity outages.
As part of the consultation, launched on its website at the beginning of the month, the RA is also asking the public if internet companies should provide a minimum service guarantee.
The purpose of the “Principles of Consumer Protection Consultation”, is to set out provisions to benefit consumers, suggest amendments to the 2020 Principles of Consumer Protection report and to invite comments.
The document, published on October 1, said the RA had received complaints regarding unplanned electricity outages.
“The complaints related to consumers not seeing reimbursement on their bills due to unplanned outages.
“The RA believes that it would be reasonable to expect that consumers are reimbursed when they are unable to use the services that they have signed up for if the unplanned outage was not caused by force majeure,” the document said.
It added: “The threshold for when a sectoral provider may be required to provide reimbursement would be set in the applicable service level agreement.
“As an example, a 99.9 per cent uptime guarantee would allow for approximately 43 minutes of downtime in a month before any reimbursements would be made.”
The document said the RA was aware of complaints on social media where consumers expressed concern that “they are not getting the service they are paying for”, particularly internet broadband services.
“Consumers are aware that they need to appropriately report service issues to their sectoral provider for resolution.
“In many instances, the problem involved may not be the fault of the sectoral provider, but actually an issue beyond the service demarcation point.”
However, the document asks the question: “Should the RA require sectoral providers to measure their quality of service performance, publish regular quality of service reports and provide consumers with a process to test their own quality of service as detailed above?
“Are there any other quality of service parameters that should be included?”
The document adds: “In some jurisdictions, sectoral providers supplying internet broadband services are required to provide a minimum service guarantee for their internet broadband service offerings by means of service-level commitments in the appropriate contract or terms and conditions document.
“Service guarantees [sometimes referred to as service level agreements] may include parameters such as minimum internet access speed, service availability, mean time to restore, latency, jitter and packet loss.”
It asks the question: “Should the RA require sectoral providers to develop and implement appropriate minimum service guarantees [or service-level agreements] for their internet broadband service offerings?”
The RA, which regulates the electricity, electronic communications, submarine cables and fuels sectors, is also looking for feedback on two other areas — the definitions of “contract” and “term contract”, as well as marketing practices.
It said it had “become clear that the definitions of ‘contract’ and ‘term contract’ required amendment” to ensure “they capture the accurate intention of the provisions” of the 2020 report.
“The RA has become aware of potential compliance issues with the original report in respect of consumers entering [or not entering, as the case may be] contracts and term contracts for certain services.”
It said the effect was that consumers could not benefit from the protections of the 2020 report and added “such obligations contained in the Principle of Consumer Protection must be complied with”.
The Regulatory Authority said: “Contract and term contract are currently defined as: contract means an agreement between a consumer and a sectoral provider setting out the terms and conditions upon which a sectoral provider will provide good(s) and/or service(s) to a consumer and which shall include a term contract.
“Term contract means an agreement between a consumer and a sectoral provider in the electronic communications sector in Bermuda setting out the terms and conditions upon which a sectoral provider will provide service(s) or product(s) to the consumer, provided that any contract which the consumer may terminate at any time without penalty by giving not more than 30 days’ notice shall not be considered to be a term contract.”
The 2020 report, said the RA, required sectoral providers to “practice responsible marketing and selling to consumers”.
“Sectoral providers are required to communicate in a fair, appropriate and transparent manner regarding their sales, marketing and advertising activities; and to provide information about their goods, products and services in a way that is not misleading.
“Regarding this, the RA has received complaints about the lack of transparency from sectoral providers regarding the price of their services and products.
“Consumers have informed the RA that they find it difficult to find prices or services and products online.
“They also alleged that it was difficult to corroborate marketing statements made by sectoral providers.”
The consultation document asks whether the RA should amend the 2020 report to “require sectoral providers to post on their website the prices of each of their services and products (including overage rates and any hidden charges) in a way that consumers can easily find the information?”
• Written comments should be submitted before 5pm on November 1, 2024.
• To read the RA’s Principles of Consumer Protection Consultation paper and the 2020 Principles of Consumer Protection Final Report, see Related Media
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