§ 0.469   Advance payments.

   (a) The Commission may not require advance payment of estimated FOIA fees
   except as provided in paragraph (b) or where the Commission estimates or
   determines that allowable charges that a requester may be required to pay
   are likely to exceed $250.00 and the requester has no history of payment.
   Where allowable charges are likely to exceed $250.00 and the requester has a
   history  of  prompt payment of FOIA fees the Commission may notify the
   requester of the estimated cost and obtain satisfactory assurance of full
   payment.  Notification that fees may exceed $250.00 is not, however, a
   prerequisite for collecting fees above that amount.

   (b) Where a requester has previously failed to pay a fee charged in a timely
   fashion (i.e., within 30 days of the date of the billing), the Commission
   may require the requester to pay the full amount owed plus any applicable
   interest as provided in § 0.468, and to make an advance payment of the full
   amount of the estimated fee before the Commission begins to process a new
   request or a pending request from that requester.

   (c)  When the Commission acts under paragraph (a) of this section, the
   administrative time limits prescribed in § § 0.461(g) and (k) (i.e., twenty
   business days from receipt of initial requests and twenty business days from
   receipt of appeals from initial denials, plus permissible extensions of
   these time limits (see § 0.461(g)(1)(i) through (iii) and § 0.461(k)(1)(i)
   through  (iii))  will begin only after the agency has received the fee
   payments described in this section. See § 0.461(e)(2)(ii) and § 0.467(e)(2).

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