Time is Money: The Biden administration is cracking down on shady techniques that businesses use to "add unnecessary headaches and hassles to people's days" and diminish their standard of living. "Time is Money" is an initiative targeting the strategically designed hoops that some companies force customers to jump through in order to cancel a membership or get a refund due. Faced with mountains of paperwork or endless hours on hold, many consumers simply give up – and that's exactly what businesses want as it means more profit in their pockets.
The wide-reaching push involves multiple government agencies. For example, the Federal Trade Commission is working on a proposal that would make canceling a service or subscription as easy as signing up for it. The FCC, meanwhile, is now looking into whether similar requirements should be extended to companies doing business in the communications industry.
Elsewhere, the Department of Transportation's new automatic refund rule forces airlines to return airfare promptly and in the original form of payment when your flight is canceled or significantly changed for any reason, and you aren't offered rebooking options or choose not to accept them.
The administration also wants to make it easier to submit claims when dealing with health insurance companies. According to the White House, some companies still require customers to physically mail in claims. With help from the Department of Health and Human Services, the administration hopes to identify tactics to help customers save time and money when dealing with their health coverage.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, meanwhile, is planning a rulemaking process by which companies under its jurisdiction will be required to let customers talk to a human representative simply by pressing a single button on their phone, putting an end to automated "doom loops." They also aim to crack down on the use of ineffective or time-wasting chatbots that are popular among banks and other financial institutions, and determine when the use of such bots is unlawful – like when people think they are talking to a real person.
Image credit: Brotin Biswas, Alexander Dummer