Consolidated Urges Vermont PUC to Reject Automatic Bill Credits
A Vermont agency's ignoring customer-service improvements by Consolidated Communications, the incumbent complained in a Friday reply at the Public Utility Commission in docket 18-3231-PET. The Department of Public Service (DPS) urged the PUC this month to require Consolidated to pay…
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customers an automatic enhanced bill credit of $5 daily for troubles not cleared in 24 hours (see 1911010065). The department provides no legal authority to support its request for enhanced bill credits, nor “any factual support for its claim that such future, enhanced bill credits will ‘incentivize’ Consolidated,” it said. The PUC has authority to impose penalties for violating commission rules, and it doesn't have to impose them strictly in the way the violated order describes, said DPS in a separate reply Friday. "There is good cause" to "adopt a more meaningful and appropriate remedy in the form of enhanced bill credits," it said. "Unlike penalties that are distributed into the Vermont general fund, enhanced bill credits directly address service quality and are therefore in the public interest."