Prohibits telephone, cable and utility companies from charging a fee to customers who request copies of previous bill statements or statements verifying that they are a customer.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
8899
IN SENATE
August 11, 2020
___________
Introduced by Sen. COMRIE -- read twice and ordered printed, and when
printed to be committed to the Committee on Rules
AN ACT to amend the public service law, in relation to prohibiting tele-
phone, cable and utility companies from charging a fee to customers
who request copies of previous billing statements or statements veri-
fying that they are a customer
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Section 224-b of the public service law, as added by chap-
2 ter 359 of the laws of 2009, is amended to read as follows:
3 § 224-b. Cable bills. 1. At the time service is initiated to a resi-
4 dential customer and at least once a year thereafter, every telephone
5 corporation, as defined in subdivision seventeen of section two of this
6 chapter, and every cable television company, as defined in section two
7 hundred twelve of this article that provides cable service to customers
8 in New York shall provide its customers with a notice that billing
9 statements are available in a large print format. Upon written request
10 by a customer, every telephone corporation and cable television company
11 shall provide the customer's billing statements in large print format no
12 later than sixty days after the date upon which the request is received
13 by the telephone corporation and cable television company. The
14 provisions of this section shall apply only to printed statements. For
15 the purposes of this section, "large print" means a font size of sixteen
16 or larger to illuminate billing information.
17 2. Upon customer request, every telephone corporation and cable tele-
18 vision company shall provide copies of previous billing statements
19 and/or statements verifying that such person requesting the document is
20 a customer of such telephone corporation or television company. Tele-
21 phone corporations and television companies shall not impose any fee,
22 charge or surcharge for such requests.
23 § 2. Section 44 of the public service law is amended by adding a new
24 subdivision 6 to read as follows:
25 6. Upon customer request, every utility corporation, energy services
26 company or municipality shall provide copies of previous billing state-
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD14513-01-9
S. 8899 2
1 ments and/or statements verifying that such person requesting the docu-
2 ment is a customer of such utility corporation, energy services company
3 or municipality. Utility companies, energy services companies and muni-
4 cipalities shall not impose any fee, charge or surcharge for such
5 requests.
6 § 3. This act shall take effect immediately.