H.R. 3402 (110th): Calling Card Consumer Protection Act

Introduced:
Aug 03, 2007 (110th Congress, 2007–2009)
Sponsor:
Rep. Eliot Engel [D-NY17]
Status:
Died (Passed House)
See Instead:
This bill was re-introduced as H.R. 3993 (111th) on Nov 03, 2009.

The bill’s title was written by the bill’s sponsor. H.R. stands for House of Representatives bill.

(About Ads | Advertise Here)
Status

This bill was introduced in a previous session of Congress and was passed by the House on September 25, 2008 but was never passed by the Senate.

Progress
Introduced Aug 03, 2007
Referred to Committee Aug 03, 2007
Reported by Committee Sep 23, 2008
Passed House Sep 25, 2008
Cosponsors
14 cosponsors (12D, 2R) (show)
Committees

House Energy and Commerce

Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation

The committee chair determines whether a bill will move past the committee stage.

Full Title

To require accurate and reasonable disclosure of the terms and conditions of prepaid telephone calling cards and services.

Summary

No summaries available.

Text

Read Bill Text »

Last updated Oct 02, 2008.
16 pages

Primary Source

View on THOMAS (The Library of Congress)

GovTrack gets most information from THOMAS, which is updated generally one day after events occur. Activity since the last update may not be reflected here.

Citation

Click a format for a citation suggestion:

GovTrack’s Bill Summary

We don’t have a summary available yet.

Library of Congress Summary

The summary below was written by the Congressional Research Service, which is a nonpartisan division of the Library of Congress.

9/25/2008.
Section 3 -
Requires providers or distributors of prepaid calling cards, including cards that use interconnected Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or a successor protocol, to clearly and conspicuously disclose information about:
(1) the provider's name, customer service number, and hours of service;
(2) the card's number of minutes or dollar value;
(3) per minute rates or a toll-free number to obtain rates;
(4) fees and charges;
(5) time period limits, any predetermined decrease in value over a period of time, and expiration dates; and
(6) refund and recharge policies.
Section 4 -
Treats a violation as an unfair or deceptive act or practice under the Federal Trade Commission Act and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce this Act. Gives the FTC, for this Act, jurisdiction over common carriers subject to the Communications Act of 1934, notwithstanding any other provision of law.
Section 5 -
Allows civil enforcement actions to be brought, except when an FTC action is pending, by a state attorney general, a state utilities commission, or a consumer protection agency for an injunction, to enforce this Act, to obtain damages, restitution, or other compensation on behalf of state residents, or for other relief.
Allows actions under state laws.
Shields a distributor who is a retail seller of prepaid cards and who, with respect to such cards, is exclusively engaged in point-of-sale transactions from liability for damages unless the distributor acted with actual knowledge that the act or practice giving rise to the action is unfair or deceptive and is unlawful under this Act.
Section 7 -
Prohibits a state, after final regulations are promulgated under this Act, from establishing or continuing in effect any provision of law that prescribes prepaid card disclosure requirements unless those requirements are identical to those in this Act.
Section 8 -
Requires the Comptroller General to report to Congress on the effectiveness of this Act and its required disclosures.

House Republican Conference Summary

The summary below was written by the House Republican Conference, which is the caucus of Republicans in the House of Representatives.

No summary available.

House Democratic Caucus Summary

The House Democratic Caucus does not provide summaries of bills.

So, yes, we display the House Republican Conference’s summaries when available even if we do not have a Democratic summary available. That’s because we feel it is better to give you as much information as possible, even if we cannot provide every viewpoint.

We’ll be looking for a source of summaries from the other side in the meanwhile.

The bill contains the following citations to other parts of U.S. law:

United States Code

The United States Code is the compilation of permanent laws enacted by Congress. Temporary and other non-permanent laws do not appear in the United States Code. (About half of the United States Code is the law itself, called positive law. The other half is merely a compilation of the laws but has no legal significance.)