Ed Whitfield: “Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3993, the Calling Card Consumer Protection Act. We have a lot of students…”

“Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 3993, the Calling Card Consumer Protection Act. We have a lot of students and military personnel around this country who depend on prepaid calling cards. Unfortunately, we have discovered that the majority of prepaid cards only deliver 50 to 60 percent of the minutes advertised. While a private enterprise certainly has the right to shape its business model as it sees fit, it does not have the right to misinform and to mistreat customers with exorbitant hang-up fees and maintenance fees, and as I said, many people who have prepaid cards simply do not know what they actually provide them. That is why H.R. 3993 is so important. It is going to go a long way toward preventing these occurrences in the future. This legislation will ensure that consumers are better informed by requiring an accurate and reasonable disclosure of the terms and conditions of prepaid telephone calling cards and services. Under the bill, prepaid calling card providers would have to clearly disclose how many minutes they offer and the prices for those minutes.”