Here we go again. Another year, another bill to secret away important information about consumer complaints against licensed professionals, from real estate agents to auto mechanics to travel agents to massage therapists and more.
HB 2298, “Relating to Privacy Rights,” is scheduled to be heard at 8:30 tomorrow morning (Tuesday, Jan. 31) before Rep. McKelvey’s Committee on Economic Revitalization & Business. The hearing notice is available here.
The bill would set a new and far higher threshold that would have to be crossed before any information about consumer complaints could be made public. If this bill passes, only complaints that had been “referred for legal action” would become public, and then only if the person complained against had a chance to reply.
You’ll have to guess what “referred for legal action” means, as it isn’t spelled out in the bill.
I wouldn’t mind a simple Step One–if the complaint is frivolous, it doesn’t become public, except maybe in a category of “# of frivolous complaints filed against this entity….” It’s the kind of determination that could be made quickly and with a minimum of administrative overhead, perhaps even with a very short deadline. Beyond that, however, I think it’s clear that consumers need and deserve access to as much information as possible both in finding the most qualified professionals, and in avoiding being ripped off or simply unhappy with the service they receive.
This is another one of those areas where the law was pretty carefully written to balance the rights of all parties involved. This appears to be another in a long line of bills, over a period of years, to roll back consumer protections in this important area.
And despite all those bills being pushed by particular interest groups, there’s been no showing of a serious problem that is so unfair to licensees that it requires hobbling the public’s right to know.
Testimony can easily be submitted via the web.
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Who writes all of these crazy out of nowhere bills? There seem to be hundreds of them that just make no sense.
Can’t wait to see the testimony once it goes online. No doubt a “who’s who” of those who supported Rep. Choy’s bill a couple years ago, i.e., lobbysists for regulated industries, vocations, and professions. This will go a ways toward showing McKelvey’s colors on consumer protection issues in an election year, about which he seems unually concerned this time around.
I don’t agree with you Ian. As a previous owner of a licensed business, I know for a fact there is unfortunately a very small, but not insignificant, minority of nasty people who have a different set of values than you or I. Their philosophy is life is dog eat dog, and all is fair in business, businesses are run by those rich 1%’s, so its OK to rip them off. Their standard negotiating position is give me what I want even though I didn’t pay for it and that’s not what I agreed on or I will screw you by filing a complaint with the license board and the BBB. Just plain blackmail artists. And figuring out which ones are frivolous is a not as simple a task as you make it sound. In fact, these shake down artist playing the system usually have better job of presenting a better prima facie case than an actual innocent victim, because they know the system and how to work it. They know they can damage your business and reputation by filing a complaint, or evens a small claims case. Most business don’t want the black mark on their record or the hassle so they give into these people (pay off the people to go away, or give them what they didn’t pay for at no charge). If you get a list of business who had a complaint filed against them, what you might really get are a list of business who stood up for their rights and refused to be black mailed and extorted regardless of the consequences.
What if there was a question on job interview that said have you ever been arrested? You wouldn’t think that was fair. They can only ask if you have been convicted. You seem to think innocent until proven guilty should not aply to licensed professionals. Well most of the licensed professionals you are tlaking about are your neighbors, and you seem eager to take that right away from them.
We live in a hostile guilty til proved innocent environment toward business now, especially so in Hawaii where everyone is raised from birth to consider themselves a victim, and the ramifications of that is unfortunately a small minority of people use there victimization as rationalization to behave in their own unscrupulous manner towards business. But most of the “licensed” business you are talking about here are not Solyndra, CitiBank, GM or some other pseudo-government crony capitalist enterprise, they are just your neighbors, doctors, contractors, beauticians, hell, in Hawaii you practically need a professional license to change your own toilet paper. Trust me, if not for the first amendment, you too Ian would be required to have a license, and rest assured there are some people downtown trying to figure out a way around that.
The current system is flawed in many regards. I own a car repair business. Over nearly 20 years, each of the (perhaps 3) times we had a report filed on us, it was completely without merit. I wish it was because we never made a mistake. When we do, we own up to it and make things right.
When dealing with these, I learned something interesting. If you give the customer a complete refund, the complaint goes away. Perhaps it is a good rule. But if frequent enough, perhaps consumers should know.
In any case, this is just a distraction for us. The real extortion comes from people who file small claims cases against businesses. The court requires you to waste nearly half a day waiting for and talking with an arbitrator. (I have personally gotten up and walked out of one of those rather than listen to a compulsive liar who can’t keep her facts straight.) The cost of defending yourself, your time, employee witnesses, etc. usually outweighs the alleged damages. In light of this, when confronted with a small claims action, or threat thereof, I hit back with a counterclaim larger than the scammer’s and request they be heard simultaneously.
Gene is correct. Licensed professionals are people too, and are guaranteed equal protection under the law ( see US Constitution). Once due process has occurred, and a RICO case has been adjudicated, then we all want the disposition of the case posted to the RICO website for everyone’s protection. By RICO’s own numbers, less then 10% of all complaints filed are found in violation of some aspect of licensing laws or state laws, warranting some level of sanctions. Please note that of those, a significant percentage of cases were unintentional oversights, not causing significant damage. Under the present policy, DCCA does as it pleases, without any law (hence the proposed bill), and posts the complaints to their website, without any do process…where it stays for up to 5 years…even after many cases have been dismissed!
Please provide some simple clarity, Gene.
Do you support the actual language of this bill?
Should it become permanent state law as written?
Thank you.
Gene, what’s to stop a trade organization from making their own online database of “nasty people who have a different set of values” who allegedly extort their members? You can simply refuse to do business with those customers. There would be disclosure going both ways, then, one list informing the regulated businesses and another list for the consumers.
Could both lists be abused? Sure. But if this is truly a case of a tiny minority making pilikia…
The bill passed out of McKelvey’s committee with unspecified amendments, perhaps those recommended by OIP limiting the impact of the amendments (in their view, I guess) by placing them in chapter 436B, HRS, (profesional and vocational licensing) rather than chapter 92 (the “Freedom of Information Law”) and defining the vague term “referred for legal action” that would trigger a release of info.
The written testimony wages a battle between the public’s right to know, and consumer protection agency’s “right” to tell them, information that might help them make better choices in the marketplace and protect consumers from, for example, ongoing travel agency or driveway paving scams without waiting for legal action, and professional and vocational licensees right not to be defamed/blackmailed by chronic complainers.
At some level, this is a battle of extreme possibilities (the occasional fast moving scam and the small minority of chronic complainers) when the reality is that, by and large, the info will not have a huge impact either way. But, as a matter of public policy, the default mode should be disclosure and, when there is a problem, business people would seem better equipped to defend themselves in the marketplace.
As a side note, the proponents are particularly irked by 24/7, internet access to info based on complaints (with no investigation/determination) and that the info goes back 5 years. Acknowledging nearly 600,000 page views for RICO and OCP in FY 2011, DCCA reported that it has begun limiting the info to the most recent 2 years, segregating RICO and OCP cases, and “archiving” (deleting?) cases that resulted in no legal action.
I have been on both ends of the consumer complaint process in Hawaii.
First as a consumer. I was treated like an annoyance, my complaint wasn’t taken seriously, no effort was made to actually investigate anything (they basically took the word of the business about what happened, regardless of the evidence), and I felt disrespected and abused all over again by the state agency that was supposedly created to help me. My complaint was not frivolous and I had copious amounts of documentation, but I still lost.
Then as a business owner. In that case the complaint was obviously frivolous, there was no evidence, and the client had made a blatant threat to try and ruin my reputation, so I was expecting it. When I opened the envelope I felt a little twinge of concern that I would have to bend over backwards proving myself against unsubstantiated allegations. That didn’t last very long, however, because I remembered how I was treated when I complained, and I knew that the folks at the DCCA would barely give that person the time of day. I won without even breaking a sweat. The complaint still shows up on my license as closed due to insufficient evidence, and I don’t like having it there, but it hasn’t affected my business at all.
After experiencing both sides, and even feeling slightly grateful for the lameness of the DCCA on the receiving end of a complaint, I would much rather have a system that actually informs and protects consumers. Even if it means I have to deal with an occasional frivolous complaint showing up on my record.