§  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).