  We explain recent experimental observations on effective charge of edge
states tunneling through a quantum point contact in the weak backscattering
regime. We focus on the behavior of the excess noise and on the effective
tunneling charge as a function of temperature and voltage. By introducing a
minimal hierarchical model different filling factors, \nu=p/(2p+1), in the Jain
sequence are treated on equal footing, in presence also of non-universal
interactions. The agreement found with the experiments for \nu=2/3 and \nu=2/5
reinforces the description of tunneling of bunching of quasiparticles at low
energies and quantitatively defines the condition under which one expects to
measure the fundamental quasiparticle charge. We propose high-order current
cumulant measurement to cross-check the validity of the above scenario and to
better clarify the peculiar temperature behavior of the effective charges
measured in the experiments.
