Mr. Portman we are here today to discuss a topic that affects just about every american family. And often frustrates us as American Families and that is cable or satellite tv service. For over a year now, we have undertaken an investigation of the cable and television, Satellite Television industry. As many of you know, weve been issued in this interested in this issue. We have a keen interest in making of the Satellite Companies do the right thing by their subscribers. The subcommittee reviewed literally thousands of documents and interviews countless witnesses to learn more about the Consumer Practices of the 5 largest paid tv providers. This includes comcast, charter, Time Warner Cable, dish network and directv. Together these companies serve more than half of all american households and nearly three quarters of those who pay for television programming. Todays hearing will focus on the companies billing and Consumer Service practices. Our joint report outlines troubling findings from two companies that have consistently failed to provide refunds to customers who they know they have overcharged including , thousands people in ohio. Ill talk about those findings in a moment. The second is a report issued by senator mccaskill on a number of interests for consumers, how paid tv companies disclose prices sh what the fees are for and how they teach employees to interact with and retain customers. And without objection, these reports will be made part of the record. During the course of the subcommittees investigation, we discovered something about refunds that frankly i found hard to believe. As anyone with a cable or satellite subscription knows, when your bill arrives every month it has a long list of charges on it. I have a bill in front of me. It is a pretty complicated bill, a base charge for the tv package, maybe 10 for hbo, equipment fees, and surcharges for the set top boxes that you rent. Given how many millions of people get Television Service from these companies, its inevitable that from time to time a customer will wind up getting charged for something by mistake. That happens. Same thing, by the way, happened in the Grocery Store checkout line sometimes. Its happened to me. Mistakes happen. We understand that. What matters in life is how you own up to your mistakes and make things right. But we discovered is that some cable and Satellite Companies are better than that at doing that than others. All of the companies before us have ways of identifying overcharges to customers and preventing them from happening in the first place. But what happens when they find out theyve been overcharging someone for equipment that customer doesnt actually have . The first thing they do, of course, is take it off the customers bill Going Forward. All the companies before us know how to do that. But not all of them bother to go back and figure out when the overcharge started, calculate how much they owe the consumer and give them a refund. During the time period examined by the subcommittee, Time Warner Cable and Charter Communications who have just recently merged with each other made no effort , to trace equipment overcharges they identified and provide refunds to their customers. Instead, the practice has been to just pocket the past overcharges. To understand the scale of this problem, we asked for specific numbers about overcharges in ohio. Heres what we found. During the first five months of 2016 this year, Time Warner Cable overbilled up to 11,000 customers in ohio and those overcharges totaled over 100,000. They estimate that throughout last year it overbilled 40,000 , ohio customers with overcharges of more than 430,000. And rather than correct the mistake by refunding the overcharges, the company just kept the money. In my view, thats a ripoff of ohio consumers. Ill be asking the company today how theyre going to fix it. Specifically, when Time Warner Cable discovered the overcharges, it only dealt with the problem prospectively. It took erroneous charges off the bills Going Forward, they do not provide any back refunds and did not provide notice to customers so they could investigate the problem themselves. They just kept the money. Based on data provided to the subcommittee, Time Warner Cable will overbill the customers nationwide an estimated 2 million for equipment charges in even after discovering the 2016, billing errors. Theyll fail to do the work required to provide a full refund. Well talk about that. They have recently been acquired by Charter Communications so i hope they work to fix the problems. Charter this problems this problem. But, charter has had problems of their own. Up untilust august 2015, they did not that means they cannot receive the correction of the bill unless they saw the problem themselves and contacted charter. Recently, they started to take steps to see these overcharges in the system, but even though it is identified overcharges, removing the charges from future august 2015,ince until today charter has not provided any refunds or notice of the problems to the customers. Just like Time Warner Cable. It does not have to be this way. The investigation revealed that dish has had better practices. It provide automatic refunds to customers with an overcharge with their billing system. Tole this system is designed prevent any of these overcharges from occurring in the first place. So feasibility and my view is not a good excuse, as to village refund customers when they have been overcharged. We have good news to report. As a result of our investigation much better and Time Warner Cable have taken steps to improve practices. Time warner performs a monthly audit to find overcharges. Going forward, they will provide a one month credit to all customers for each piece of overbilled equipment or service and will provide notice to overbilled customers so they can determine whether to request a credit or refund. That is a good start. But it doesnt make all customers whole. Time warner cable is not yet committed to anything for the 40,000 ohio customers, for instance, who were overcharged last year. And well get into that discussion later today. Charter has announced they will provide a one year credit to all affected consumers. That, of course, goes further to make customers whole. But it would be better to simply ensure that customers receive the full refunds that theyre owed. The report Shows Americans are often unhappy with the cable and satellite service, questionable Customer Service techniques and confusion surrounding billing practices led consumers to feel mistreated. I support a effort to get to bottom of the issues and i feel the best solution to the problem of our poor Customer Service is more competition. If you dont like your Television Service provider, you should be able to provide a to choose a different provider, to suit your needs and preferences. Senator mccaskill and i are going to look into providing more choices for the consumers. I want to thank the senator for her work on this. She and her staff have worked with us in a professional and productive way to make today possible. With that i would like to turn to senator mccaskill for opening statements. Ms. Mccaskill thank you. I want to thank you for allowing me to pursue along with you and staff, this investigation. I think that we can feel great about the fact that just this investigation and hearing have caused good things to happen for consumers as it relates to paid tv. As you indicated, weve had a change just from the investigation both charter and , time warner agreed to issue credits for thousands of customers who were overbilled and comcast has provided Additional Guidance to the retension representative allowing customers to cancel without an argument. So we can already claim some small victory as a result of these investigations. And the syrian and i think this today. Is an important area for us to continue to look at. It is amazing to me when we began asking for input, the volume and passion of input we got from people about how they feel like they are mistreated by their paid tv provider. And this morning for the first time, our nations largest cable and Satellite Companies are testifying together before us about their service, Customer Service and billing practices. They are here because this subcommittee has broad jurisdiction to investigate issues when affect the american which affect the american people. I try to have this hearing as the chairman of the Consumer Protection subcommittee and i got no cooperation from any of these companies in connection with that hearing in the later months of 2014. So, i made a determination then that i wasnt going to give up. And that we were going to stay on this. And i am grateful for chairman portman and his agreement to let this go forward. They provide Video Services to more than half of all american households. They enable more than 71 million subscribers and their families to receive news, entertainment and other programming. And while we may love watching our shows, we do not love our cable and satellite bills. And we hate dealing with the cable and Satellite Companies. Although the Companies Made gains in the past year, paid tv providers are the most disliked industries in america. This year a survey of consumers found that more than 20 of the people who interacted with tv providers reported having a bad experience during the previous six months. The highest level of any industry. So how i did begin down this road . Well, it was with a personal experience. I called one of my providers and asked questions about my bill. And in the process of that conversation, i learned, this is over two years ago, that there was a 10 charge on my bill for a Certain Service that now was included in the basic package. And i said, well, so im paying 10 and i dont have to . And the person on the other end of the line kind of said, yeah. Youre paying 10 and you dont have to pay it. I said, well were you going to tell me this . And they said, well, no, you have to call in and ask. Thats exactly the kind of hide the ball that infuriates people. So if i hadnt called in and asked, that 10 could still be on my bill today. Based on the billing practices of the companys represented at of the Companies Represented at this hearing. So we have done a huge investigation and i have reviewed a lot of material and my staff has and ive consumed a lot of information about this. So i decided two days ago id take another spin. Now i know a lot. Now i know the difference between a Customer Service representative and a retension specialist. Now i know what to say and how to say it. So two days ago i called one of my providers. And im, on my website people on my website, people can listen to the recording of this conversation. And i am going to in fairness, because i dont think this is necessarily one Company Versus another. I am not going to talk about which company it is. And nor will the recording. And im not going to read here nor on the recording will i give , my personal information i was asked to give when i called. But heres how the conversation went. The first part of it until they got me to that magic retection specialist. Hello and thank you so much for calling. Can i have your name, please . My name is claire mccaskill. Can you spell that for me, please. I proceeded to spell it. I proceeded to give the representative my service address. I proceeded to give her the name on the account and say that was my husbands name. And she asked what my relationship was to the account holder. I said it was my husband. And then the woman says, ok. How can i help today . I said i would like to have you remove, theres a fee on here. Im not sure how it got on here for a Protection Plan. I dont recall buying that or being asked about it and i would like to have it removed. Now she wants to get my information about my account and my active credit card to make sure i am the person that i say i am, so she goes through what credit card i have on file. Then she says, all right. So you said youre seeing a charge for a Protection Plan and youd like to know what its for. I said, no, id like to take it off. Oh, youd like to take it off . Yes. Alright. But you are aware that Protection Plan covers equipment upgrade every two years and if you lose your equipment then well replace it for you at no charge. I said, well you are saying that equipment i have in my house now is mine or it is yours . Well, its ours. But if there are any issues say, for example, spildz or the or accidentally the cables are cut, we will replace it for you. I said but lets just say if , its your equipment and something goes wrong with it, dont you have to fix it anyway if i get the service im paying for . Since you own the equipment . Well, we, lets say if the remote fails or stops working, the Protection Plan on the account will fix that free of cost. I said, well what would that cost if the remote quit working, is your remote that you own, what would it cost to get it fixed without the Protection Plan . The woman says information on that is done in our Equipment Department so id like to you there for more information. I said, no, no, no, i dont want do that because if you do that, i have to wait and tell the story all over again. Find out why i cannot. 99you to take off the 7 for the Protection Plan. Im not saying im not able to lettingoff, im just you know the benefits you get with the Protection Plan. I understand, i think i understand. I think frankly its a ripoff, you own the equipment, i think you have to fix the equipment you own the equipment and if you cant fix the equipment, i couldnt get the service and i would go to another provider so im asking will you disconnect pay thent want to 7. 99, i dont know how it got startedll, i think you putting it on my bill and i wasnt paying close enough attention. All right, she says, but if i actually have the Protection Plan taken off, there will be a disconnection fee. It would be a 10 disconnection quit paying the 7. 99 every month . Thats correct and its a onetime disconnection fee . Yes, its onetime. And what am i paying for . Paying for, she says . Am i paying for . For you to quit charging me the service, ive got to pay you 10 . Well, no, basically i think switchs time for me to carriers. If youre going to charge me 10 to quit charging me for think its time to switch carriers. Well, basically thats the policy so once i take charge, 10 protection it will be automatically on your account. So what youre saying is i want 7. 99 every month for the Protection Plan, youre 10 to doharge me that . You have no choice . No choice. You cant waive that . Thats correct. Discretion to waive the 10 . We do value your business but its a policy here. Once i take it off, there will be the 10 charge and theres nothing you can do about that, you do not have the option to waive and she says, no, i do not. Well, who could waive the 10 . She said, well, i would have to retentiono the specialist and im not really thathow it works in department. So then she switched me over to the Retention Specialist. Now, this is typical. Its typical. And more importantly, when she switched me to the Retention Specialist, i knew what to say. I knew to keep threatening that not give up, keep threatening i was leaving. And by the way, it was a long call. Even when we edited it to take out some of the things that are longer than, it was 15 minutes. And at the end of the call, i 7. 99 off. Get the i was told by the Retention Specialist i never should have 10 and by thee way, i got so mad and escalated, called in the business, the retention special lift gave me 10 off a month for 12 months. Looking at a screen that told them information about me including the fact that im a billsgood customer, my pretty high. I say this because i think this is what the industry may be doesnt completely understand in terms of the anger. We found that customers are charged a host of fees that are not included in advertised pricing, some of that are for programming used to be included in a customers video package. Manyso found that just as customers have long believed some of these fees like h. D. And d. V. R. Service fees arent a true reflection of the cost of the company of the service but based on the revenue goals of the company and the price that the customer is willing to stomach. Some of these fees are charging to old customers while new customers get the same services charge. Existing customers may not be informed of this. It when they finally figure out, they have to call and complain to get it taken off. We found that customers who help on their accounts faced agents whose job it is not just to solve the but, ins problems fact, to sell them additional services. At one cable company, even when the customer called in to ask about why their bill was going up, the company told them, quote, the price adjustment brings within an opportunity to upsell customers and these agents are compensated, in part, on their ability to sell you more. Decides to customer cancel the service, that i have to jump through more hoops. Hereugh all the companies