Address Predatory Telecom Billing Practices

I am writing today to ask you to craft legislation targeting the predatory billing practices of telecom companies that are harming consumers. My area benefited from federal grants to expand fiber optic Internet recently. I changed Internet service providers to take advantage of this better connectivity. At the time that I switched, my new ISP did not offer telephone service, and so I maintained a landline with my previous ISP to keep my telephone. In order to keep the telephone, I also had to maintain a minimum Internet subscription. Now, my new ISP is offering telephone, and so I have started the process of switching my phone service from the old ISP to the new one. Today, I called my old ISP to cancel service. I was told that, because I was a week past the start of my billing cycle, I would be charged for Internet service until next month, even though I’m not using it. Based on news articles from summer of 2019, it seems that telecom companies made a change in policies around that time that would allow them to charge until the end of a billing cycle instead of prorating billing. This kind of predatory billing practice is harmful to consumers like me. Please stand up for voters and create legislation that keeps telecom companies from taking our money for services, not rendered.