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Judge Sues ISP for Poor Service
Pig Hogger writes: "According to this National Post story, Ontario small claims judge Beverley Reade is taking Rogers Cable to court, after she failed to get a credit when her Internet connection stopped working for a few days. She asks for either $5800 ($500 for breach of contract, $300 as compensation for her inconvenience & $5000 for punitive damages) OR an apology from cable mogul Ted Rogers himself (like this would ever happen...). The kicker is that, despite being hounded by a collection agency seeking the disputed amount, judge Reade keeps being getting solicited by Rogers marketroids trying to sell her high-speed internet access and cable-TV service..."
I'm in the Scarborough area and I have very few problems with Rogers. However, every two to three days I wind up having to reset the cable modem and Linksys router sometimes followed by a DHCP Release and Renew to get going. Most users may not know the various tricks to try resetting the equipment at the client side. The big question is how well do their technical support people know how to train users. One of the first questions they should be asking is what equipment are you using. Their support people never ask me this. Then again on the rare times that I call support I am usually calling in with a list of which of their servers that I can and cannot ping. If they perhaps can better document proceedures to reset client side equipment then they could probably cut down on the number of support calls. I have a technical background and can figure out most problems on my own. The average person is not going to do this. They are going straight for the phone.
I have COGECO in Kingston Ontario. My experience is the exact opposite of yours. I've had no service for months at a time, and been expected to pay full cost for that luxury. Let me tell you about the COGECO: Whenever it rains, I loose my service. I call their "local Kingston number", which is just a goofy forward to their Burlington head support office. I spend on average 2 hours on hold, no matter when I call. Day or night, week o week-end. I ask how many people are there working the phones; usually the answer is between 6~12, never higher than 16. After 40 minutes of going through checklist type "help" with the "technical support" trained monkey, they book a service call. A dude shows up in a truck two weeks later, claims to have fixed it, and leaves. A week later, it breaks again. The modem falls into a cycle of working for two days, then not worknig for three. The support guy doesn't want to book another service call, because the guy was just there last week. "We'll credit your account..." Of course, they didn't. I don't know how you define training, but I don't define it as reading off a checklist that's just: A) Try rebooting the computer B) Check all the cables and drivers C) Reset the modem one way D) Reset the modem another way E) Delete your IE cache -> Service call if they're feeling generous The entire time I keep saying "I'm an enterprise IT tech, I know it's because the modem isn't connecting to it's network." But the greasy teenager on the other end always knows best. So why do I still have this COGECO nonsense? Because there just isn't anyone else. COGECO@Home, Rogers@Home, Shaw@Home... They all have jurisdictional monopolies... They prove the cable TV, and the Cable internet. If you dont' like it, go back to Dial-up. You could try ADSL, but it costs more than cable, and isn't as fast. The marketing guys at Bell really have their act together...
Actually Rogers are terrible. Some people never have a problem, but woe betide you if you are not one of those people. It took them FIVE weeks to get my connection working after the initial installation. Two days after the installation, I called and asked them to send a new modem (I had tested a friend's modem and it worked). A week later - and countless power cycles (Phone Support: "Sir, power the modem off and power back on, you chould be OK" Me: "The last phone support guy had me do that 20 times. I just tested a friend's modem and it works. Send me another modem please." Phone Support: "Sir, please power the modem down and power on again. Everything test out fine here." Me: "Yes. The modem is the problem." Phone support "Sir, please power cycle ---" click)
Where was I..? Oh yeah a week later they sent a guy with NO modem. He said everything was OK.
Repeat cycle, over and over. Finally I SNAPPED and gave the phone guy bloody hell, so TWO weeks after that they sent a guy with a new modem. Guess what?
After that, I just lost the mail server a few times every week and totally lost service a day or two every week until I finally gave up on them.
On the other hand I have friends in another city who've had uninterrupted service for over 2 years. Go figure.
Anyway my point is - Rogers really don't make any effort to supply what they advertise, and this person is perfectly right to take them to court over it.
PS, using BELL Symnpatico DSL now for a year. No interruptions, throughput 2x any I ever got from Rogers.
I'm a former SWBell (an SBC baby bell) DSL customer, and myself and others in the area have been through far worse.
My latest scenario:
A year ago, I moved to a location that was declared as being over 24,000 feet out from the CO, and therefore could not continue to get DSL. It took me about 3 months to get it removed from my bill (ARGH!).
Okay, three months ago (a year after previously cancelling my service), I suddenly was billed for DSL service. How the HELL can I be billed for service that I not only do not have, but can NOT PHYSICALLY obtain?
The first month, they credited me the amount mis-billed, and swore up and down that the DSL service was removed from my bill.
The second month, I did in fact get the credit, but was still being billed for the non-existent DSL! I called back, was credited again, and was put on hold for 25 minutes while the rep (who previously claimed she could not get ahold of a manager at the time) spoke to a manager who said that, on the spot, they removed, and confirmed removed, the DSL service from my bill.
A week later, I got a call from a DSL installer wanting to confirm a schedule for them to come out and install my DSL. Argh!
This month, I recieved my bill. I had not recieved my credit for the previous month. I was charged a late fee. To add insult to injury, they were STILL FUCKING BILLING ME FOR DSL!!!
This time, I got another credit (AGAIN!), and they claimed, once again, to have removed DSL from my services. This time, I spoke with my local billing office (as opposed to SWBell Internet Services). I asked them to specifically note on my account that SBIS was BARRED permenantly from being able to add services or bill my account. Period.
We'll have to see.
A relative of mine, on the other hand, has been billed for a year now for a dial up connection he does not have. SWBell has attempted to criminally extort this money from him by telling him he had to pay the entire amount of the bill (now several hundred dollars) and file a complaint. Then, if and only if it was determined to be "true", then he would be CREDITED for that massive amount. In the meantime, they have turned off his phone and DSL service multiple times. They even turned the phone off after being given a direct order by the Texas Public Utilities Commission that they were not to disconnect his service under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES WHAT-SO-EVER. Keep in mind that in most states, the phone companies do what the state PUC's say, or ELSE. It is a severe penalty when they violate an order like that.
The latest I hear is that the PUC is about to "lower the boom" on SBC. They have warehouses full of complaints just about their DSL service.
Here are some more little tidbits:
-- Their phone reps have been caught red-handed giving false names over the phone (caught by verifying with their own supervisors/managers they transfered people to).
-- Whenever you accuse SBC of capping their DSL service below their guaranteed cap of 1.5MB (which is a severe FCC violation) they suddenly become very quiet--you don't have that many people react in this manner unless they know something is going on.
-- The same thing occurs when you accuse them of chaining multiple DSLAMS together (thereby reducing the possible bandwidth of the connected DSL users).
Personally, I'm waiting for Birch or one of the other local phone carriers (NOT AT&T) to get rolling in town, and I'll tell SWBell to kiss my ass forever.
Unfortunately what the Firestone/Bridgestone case shows us is that in order to draw enough bad press to really have an effect on a large corporation, they have to kill a few dozen people.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
This is indeed scary--this woman is hearing cases? Her actions in this suit show a fundamental lack of understanding of the law.
Yes, this is Canada, and not a state where I have a license. Note, though, that the US is usually in the forefront of jackpot-style expansions of the law.
Never mind whether or not you hate the ISP, or what you think is fair. This is about the law.
There are no punitive daages on a contract. None. Zip. Nil. Just can't have them. You might get something for general damages in addition to the value of the services not delivered, but not several thousand--at most, she gets here regular rate of compensation.
The only way to get punitive damages out of a contract is to show a fraud in getting you into the contract. To show this, you need to show that a statenmt was made with the knowledge it was untrue. This does not appear to be what she's doing, though, according to the article.
and why did I give it up for academia???
hawk
After a year and a half of a VERY broken connect and refusals time and again from rogers to send anyone to my house to repair my connect, I threatened them with a lawsuit in order to talk to someone in a higher tier in tech support. (A benign threat- I didn't have the time or money to take on this sort of thing.)
I insinuated that they advertised that Rogers allowed you to do certain things with your cable modem, including surfing the web and playing games. However, I was told flat out by many of their techs that as long as my connect is up and they can ping it, they will do NOTHING ELSE to help me with my connect.
When Rogers left British Columbia and Shaw moved in, a tech came to my house to switch my Lancity modem with a Terayon model (thanks to Terayon and Shaw for the non-competition monopolistic contract). Apparently the wiring inside my wall was positively rotten. It was fixed by a Shaw employee that day.
Rogers deserves to rot for what I would call false advertising.
As a sidenote, if anyone is going through a Shaw to Rogers switch like I did, check out my experiences.
\\\ SLUDGE
NAFTA. Remember the increasing entanglement of our laws and business practices in North America.
This could get interesting if she wins; couldn't it be used as precedent for several aspects of customer/business/government communication interaction? Imagine having to provide x number of tech support for each 1000 customers, or metered internet access with automatic deduction for downed connection time. Interesting possibilities.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
If they have not provided you with a proper degree of service, you should absolutely withold payment. In a conflict liie this, it is FAR more difficult to get money back than it is to get a bill cancelled.
Of course, the ISP is easily within their rights to report the failure of a bill payment to a collection agency, but the burden of proof, and its enforcement, is on the shoulders of the vendor.
Asking for a refund is not at all the way to handle this. Clearly you haven't dealt with many vendors like this before.
to do with it...IT IS IN SMALL CLAIMS COURT, there is a financial cap on damages.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
IANAL, but as far as I can recall, there is presedence already. A contract is not valid if it is not balanced, benefitting only one party.
A company can put all kinds of disclaimers in their little print, but if these disclaimers are not reasonable, a court will dismiss them in a heartbeat.
Yeah, basically a court can find a contract to be "unconscionable" if it is absurdly tilted towards one party or the other. Trouble is, I bet you could count on two hands the number of contracts voided by courts in the US for unconscionability in the last *century*.
In theory, such a thing can be done, but in practice it virtually never happens, because the general presumption is that both parties understand the contract before signing it. You could try to get a contract voided that way, but believe me, you're never gonna get beyond the judge asking you why, if the contract was so awful, you signed it anyway. Unless you're retarded, insane, or otherwise demonstrably incapable of guarding your own best interests, you're going to be stuck with that contract, even if it is totally one-sided.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
I have ordered both Cable and Phone service over the phone, they did not read me the written agreement before placing my service. This is the same as the EULA agreement about agreeing with the EULA after you open the box.
Also the arguments about 5800 as too much, i think its too little. Her time is worth more than 500 bux for hours of lousy on-hold music.
I had AT&T @Home for two years before getting my new locally owned and run cable modem service in my new place.
The level one support people are clueless, and like to blame your machine or hardware for every problem, even if you haven't changed anything, and you wake up some morning to find all three of your computers no longer connecting to the network, and you've swapped out your hub and every network cable. I am not making this up, it happened to me, and it took two and a half weeks for them to diagnose that there was a problem in the cable box outside my apartment building. One tech had come out, but didn't bother to actually TEST the line, just installed a new modem and left saying "it should work in a couple of hours".
What I want, is for ISPs to take providing service more seriously. If you do convince them that there is an actual problem with your line or modem, @Home always schedules someone to come to your house in two weeks, not the next day, not even that week.
Would I accept that from the phone company or the power company? Hell no! Maybe access to the internet isn't important to them, but it is important to me, as it can save me several trips to the office to fix minor glitches or help out computer-challenged users.
Now, I understand that cable modems can go down, but for the love-of-god, have a free dial-up number locally for when it does, so that those of us who have phone modems at least have a backup that we can use for those two weeks while we wait for help. AT&T has a modem pool that their subscribers can use, FOR FIFTY CENTS PER MINUTE. That's adding insult to injury.
What is the average cluelss user supposed to do for two weeks without access? You can generate an awful lot of negative eBay feedback for unpaid auctions and unsent goods if you can't get to your e-mail for two weeks...
I know that if you really NEED Internet access 24/7, you should be using something more expensive than a $30/month cable modem, but it's time that @Home actually showed some concern for the experience of the end users...
---
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
--
Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.
In reality, many contracts include unenforceable language that is knowingly included for its intimidation value. They know that it would get laughed out of court, but they know that most people are not lawyers and will assume the language is valid.
You need to consult with a lawyer if you want to know what the contract actually means.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Rogers sent a collection agency after her over a disputed bill. That agency threatened to ruin her credit rating. She certainly is entitled to damages, and $5000 isn't excessive.
I think she'll win.
It might set an interested precedent if the judge wins. As another poster mentioned, there's probably one of the usual "we disclaim any liability for it not working" sort of clauses somewhere in the agreement. (While the agreement for signing up with the cable company may not have been an actual "click-through" thing, the "it's not our fault if it doesn't work" is a common feature of such things).
If the judge wins, should commercial software developers start worrying about the lack of protection that these clauses in the licenses?
---
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
I've always wondered-- do churches carry Act of God insurance?
Now, naturally, if the ISP loses a peer or upstream provider, or your cable gets cut, there's gonna be some connectivity problems, but it should be fixed promptly, and other problems should be fixed immediately. My cablemodem died two nights back, and Roadrunner sent a tech out (after standard tech support call) at 10:30pm to figure out the problem, and fixed it. In the past, they've always either fixed it immediately or given me credit for the day.
It's reasonable to assume your ISP will provide you with Internet service, funky EULAs stating "we won't provide you with service, even though our ads explicitly promise it" be damned.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Add to that the actual threats they made towards her credit rating while she was attempting to get that bank loan, plus the usual obnoxious behavior that collection firms can sometimes get into, a complete lack of respect by the service provider about any of it's customers, makes me think that she's asking for too little in punitive damages to get the company to rethink this kind of behavior.
It's exactly concerns like this and other horror stories that make me mistrust most cable ISP's.
Rogers is notorious for being way over subscribed. I know several people in Toronto who have had lousy service and non-existant support form this company. Fortunately for me, I'm not in an area serviced by Rogers, and for that I am glad. From what I've seen when I've tried to help the above people, they use @Home's DHCP servers - which keep blowing up. Their backbone seems to be at or near capacity all the time. They put way to many subscribers on the same cable segment - which really degrades performance. And they don't want to fix these problems - capital expendature.
Myself, I subcribe via Cogeco, who was about the same when I first started with them. However, they have a clue - when thier backbone started melting, they quadrupled it's bandwidth. When @Home kept blowing up it's DHCP server, they put thier own in Burlington, Ontario. When wait times on service calls regularily went over 45 minutes, they hired new staff - they even trained them before they went on Hell desk duty. I have only been off-line for a total of one hour in the last 4 months. All in all, I am extremely satisfied with Cogeco.
The difference here is that Cogeco is in this for the long haul - they want to keep thier on-line customers happy, so they keep thier on-line customers in the face of any competition. Rogers doesn't give a flying fuck as long as you pay your bill.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Cable companies in Canada are granted local monopolies for cable access. Rogers certainly behaves like it has a monopoly - "Oh, just pay your bill, we'll fix it soon."
This is just someone who is hitting back since there's relatively no alternative. I myself couldn't go back to dialup, and Sympatico is not much better for service. As well, I'm fairly certain thet there's not a CO on or within 7 or 8 Km ( about 4.4 to 5.0 miles) of Pelee Island - IOW it's out of DSL range.
(OT: There is also somewhat misleading advertising from Sympatico. They advertise "No sharing, always fast" - about 760Kb to the CO - but what they don't tell you is that you and the other 200 people in the CO are sharing a single T1 to the Internet. Since Cable is usually @ 1.5Mb, it's about the same in the end, isn't it?)
I won't duplicate an earlier rant, but let's just say that the trouble with Rogers (and Bell Canada - owners of the Sympatico service) is one of being a little too focused on the bottom line and not thier customers. Having a monoploy seems to do that to a company, IMHO.
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
The Judge probably decided to do that after Rogers sent a *collection agency* to collect supposedly owed fees for a service that didn't work.
.. It's a consumer service. The consumer has a right to demand that things work.
Also, recall that she is not seeking punitive damanges because of her internet service, but because of Roger's actions as a company. She is not asking for punitive damages because her net access didn't work, she's suing for damanges because of how they acted *after* she cancelled her service.
The breach of contract part is about the contract/aup/whatever you want to call it.
However, an AUP that disclaims punitive damanges would be, i'd think, limited to damages related to internet access or loss thereof, directly. So you can't sue them when they crash and you lose access to e-trade for an hour and lose money.. that's not their fault. You cannot, however, disclaim all punitive measures against the company itself for whatever reason...
She's suing because of their actions as a company, not because of lost internet access.
No.
Punitive is supposed to punish the offender, more than pay the plaintiff.
The judge asked for much smaller amounts for 'damages'
Yes.
I hope to receive such a notice some day.
My response will be 'We understand what you are asking, but fail to see how you can compel us to do this. If you feel we are stealing your product, please file charges, otherwise, please stop harassing us. We do not have the time to deal with you.'
The bulk of the money she's asking for is in punitive damanges because of Rogers behavior; the behavior of their collection agents, and there refusal to do proper business.
This is not simply about internet downtime.
This could be interesting..
According to the cableco, they can't be held liable because their AUP says so..
This sound suspiciously like a "click-through" license.. if the Judge wins, it could spark a HUGE blow against such licenses - finally (at least in Canada) bringing them under legal scrutiny..
I'd be interested in seeing how this plays out.. a legal precident could be in the makings...
Rogers is a HUGE media company, with fingers in cable, cellular, pagers, TV & radio stations, magazines, video rental, baseball team etc etc etc. Their profit in 2000 was almost one billion dollars.
--
"Acts of God" usually refers to specific events beyond a company's control. In the words of my DB professor, it's "Fire, Floods and Insurrection." (And Tornados, Hurricanes, heavy unseasonable snowfalls, war, et al.)
It does NOT include something a company could reasonable foresee. E.g., building a switch in a flood plain.
Very few people aren't willing to cut a company some slack after a bona fide Act of God. But many companies try to use this to justify Acts of Gomer. (Think Gomer Pyle, Cable Guy, and you know what I mean.) It's Gomer Pyle, CEO, who didn't staff the help line and caused hour-long waits on help-calls, not God. It's Gomer Pyle, CEO, who made some decisions that caused the network connection to be routinely dropped.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Yeah, read the contract. It promised timely, 24-hour support. Not hours on hold, only to finally reach a clerkoid with no answers or authority.
Besides, taken to its logical extreme (something many cable providers attempt), that clause would make it perfectly legal for them to provide *no* service whatsoever. That flies in the face of common sense - contracts are supposed to be mutual guarantees of exchanges of value. Paying $40/month while the cable company does absolutely nothing doesn't make sense, and any court would throw it out.
That's all the judge is asking in this case - a determination that the company can't routinely drop that connection without reaching the point where no reasonable person would consider it worth the hassle. There has to be *some* limit, and since it's not stated in the contract that's something that can (and will be) determined by a judge or jury.
There's also issues regarding business and collection practices. From what the article said, I agree with the judge that the company's behavior crossed the line of acceptable behavior. Promising a future credit, for an unknown amount at an unknown time, is nothing but a clear "fuck off" to the customer.
(IANAL, but can read.)
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
The dude has an offer on the table to make the whole thing go away by apologizing. Why in the world didn't he do so immediately? Doesn't he know what it's going to cost a company the size of Rogers Cable to litigate *anything*?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Odd how this is the first I've ever heard of anyone complaint about this ISP via way of a lawsuit. I wonder how many others have either complained, in comparison with how many users they have, etc. People always complain for whatever reason about anything, it's human nature.
As stated how many people faced this same problem with this provider? A bit disturbing to see this article which seems to contain shaky grounds. So she doesn't want money but an apology? If it's a matter of morals, why waste the peoples time and money with this bs, just move along to another provider, unless she has a vendetta which is not written going on against the provider.
Now when I see things like it would shut down when she and her kids were using it, how the hell does she know it wasn't her own, or her kids negligence that was causing it? For this I refer to "Diary of an AOL'er", a funny ass story, but oh so true for some people.
Want Root?
You don't mean four, you mean "at least 5".
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I think I'll go into the ISP business. I'll sell customers a 100gigabit access for $19.95 per month. When they complain that they ain't getting any service I'll point out the Rogers Clause in their contract, and try to upgrade them to my premiere package (1 zillion terabits for the low, low price of $39.95 pre month).
Considering the suit was filed last month, on an infraction committed four months ago, I should say not.. Even if he devoted 100% of his practice to it, it's only, say $80K, in fees. And this fucker is a personal accident shark, one of those fellows who advertises on TV (I've seen his adverts)... An ambulance chaser, per se..
While I agree they do work hard, as a whole, I object to this on principle.. He's a money grubbing moron who hopes he's got his star to the easy life.
.sig: Now legally binding!
If I lived within this judge's jurisdiction and was having any trouble whatsoever with the cable company. I would be running to her small claims court and filing as many suits as I could against the cable company.
This story is very lackluster on details, and does a great job of making Judge Reade look like a hero fighting a big company. That may be the case, but the facts sure don't back it up. It is made clear that Rogers has harassed her, and she should sue for that. But from the rest of the facts, this looks more like a typical frivolous lawsuit.
Unbiased Article: "Their protagonist is a former litigator..." PROTAGONIST?
She is suing for $5800: $500 for breach of contract, $300 for compensation, and $5000 for punitive damages. Lets examine this:
What are the damages? "...Reade says her kids have agreed to testify in court about the deprivation of missing television -- particularly this year's Survivor show -- and its effect on their lives..." Many Slashdotters would probably PAY money to not be mass marketed. These people consider it a $5000 damage!
AT&T has a modem pool that their subscribers can use, FOR FIFTY CENTS PER MINUTE. That's adding insult to injury
This is why I went with the Sympatico ADSL service Bell Canada offers. sure I never get more than 50kB/s and it's a dynamic IP but the customer service makes up for it.
Case in point, I was having trouble with intermittant connections with the modem. Called the toll free number, got live person within 3 minutes and they were helpful going thorugh the proper steps to double check that everything was fine, and when I told them I was using Linux, I was imediatly written up for a check on the network line, tech support said "You must know what you're doing on your end then"
Next day got a call from network support to do some checks with the modem to test the line, when nothing came up that way they sent a guy out THAT DAY to get me a new modem.
compared to the 2 weeks it took to just get rogers out to my old place to hook the stuff up, the intermittant service and the hangups when I told them I ran Linux (with the phrase "Sorry we don't support that OS") I am extremely happy with my connection, even if it's slower.
I am not alone with this problem. Everyone who lives in Hacienda Heights and Rowland Heights, CA are having similar problems:
1) Very slow speed, especially during peak hours (i.e. analog modem speed during peak hours). I was told that there are only six T1 lines in this city.
2) Too many cable modem outages.
3) Horrible technical support (nothing unusual for any companies).
4) None of can get DSL because we're too far. IDSL, satellite Internet, etc. are too expensive and slow (i.e. gaming).
5) The problems are getting worse.
6) Adelphia@Home is still adding new subscribers. My cable friends and I recently got flyers and postcards.
I was told Adelphia is going to discontinue @Home and switch subscribers to its PowerLink ISP service. I doubt that will help a lot.
Some interesting links with my city's cable modem problems:
My city complaints... Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
Speed Test Results (type in 91745 for zip code).
Adelphia Forum: A few posts related to my city and Rowland Heights.
Some results from my traceroutes, pings, etc.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
This suit really isn't as frivolous as some here are making it out to be. Regardless of what the contract says, there are certain minimum warranties required by law, and certainly a company should be held accountable to a degree for the claims it makes about itself in its advertising. Presumably she knows the law in this situation and believes she has a good case.
Clearly, Rogers could have avoided this simply by providing the support they promised they would in their marketing literature. Even if they lose, they're getting off cheap compared to the cost of actually hiring enough support operators.
And the brethren went away edified.
Have you read the story of Bob Kolody vs. Coca-Cola?
Personally, I wish I'd had the time and energy to sue my old DSL ISP in small claims court to get back the the two months of charges for service they failed to provide. Hours and hours on the phone with techs with no clue, lies about "widespread outages," and much bullshit. Finally gave up and switched to a wonderful new ISP with techs who really know their stuff. I'll be interested to see how this turns out.
---
"This message is composed of 100% recycled electrons."
And yet apparently the local phone system worked, (if people are bitching you out on the phone) despite the weather. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
Telocity has been something of a nightmare for the past 3 months. I've opened several tickets but have had no resolution yet. Their billing department wouldn't credit the full amount of downtime because they'd seen the closed ticket and time had elapsed before the next ticket was opened. Here's the script that I use to check availability:
#!/bin/bash STATUS=`ping -c 2 -q 216.227.80.37 2>/dev/null`
CODE=$?
NOW=`date`
if [ $CODE -gt 0 ]; then
echo $NOW DOWN >> ~/temp/status
else
echo $NOW UP >> ~/temp/status
fi
They were supposed to call my Noon today but haven't. The next step is to file complaints with the local PSC and the FCC.
I guess they get threatened a lot then.
When I ran Zeta Internet we used to get the occasional customer call and threaten to sue us for something or other. In every case it was a baseless threat, made simply because the customer was frustrated. We would ignore the threat and just do our best to fix up their problem, whatever it was.
The funniest one we ever got was the guy who threatened to sue us for 60 billion dollars because he didn't understand how to do FTP. We setup his website and while awaiting delegation of the domain sent an automated form letter with instructions for uploading the web pages which said something like:
And the guy didn't understand what if/then means and went positively apeshit.So anyway I can understand their policy. 99% of these threats aren't serious, but the ISP doesn't want to stuff up the 1% which actually are. This policy stops the baseless ones in their tracks, because the really want technical support, not the legal department.
I think that $5000 is resonable to make a company go "hey we did something wrong" and yet not actually damage the company in any serious way. This is a .com type company though maybe $5000 is more than thier profit this year :) Really though $5000 is almost nothing to a resonable business and I just hope its enough to get the attention of the provider and let them know that when they promise a level of service they must live up to the promise or compensate users for the loss. If nothing else they need to get a customer support staff that is competant, caring and fast.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
Surprisingly, this actually works. There has been significant jury duty reform here in California, and the leading proponent is the Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. He was called for jury duty and actually wound up serving on a jury. He was so pissed off with the way he was treated that he decided that poor treatment of prospective jurors was a serious threat to the judicial system and started leading the charge for reform. Not all of the things that he's advocated (specifically decent jury duty pay) have been implemented, but it has made a big difference.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
What, me worry?
Fight Spammers!
'She also says her kids have agreed to testify in court about the deprivation of missing television -- particularly this year's Survivor show -- and its effect on their lives.'
Yes, I can see it now
Please, tell the court how you were affected by Rogers's Actions...
I started reading. (through sobs) I got though an entire book! YOU BASTARDS!
--------
Never call a man a fool. Borrow from him.
Witness: ...and then I had to find out who won Survivor from a newspaper! [Witness breaks down sobbing]
Plaintiff's Attorney: Yes, I'm sorry...it must have been very hard. INow you know I don't want to do this, but I need you to describe for the court, in your own words, what kind of depraved, foul-smelling, leech-like --
Defense Attorney: Objection, your honour! My client is not leech-like!
Judge: Overruled.
Plaintiff's Attorney: Thank you, your honour. As I was saying -- leech-like, hideous, indescribable monster you think could possibly deprive you of the wholesome, innocent joys of childhood by taking away television.
Carousel is a lie!
maybe they could see what we (the massive) consumers have to put with
and so maybe we could get court decisions voted *our* way for once ...
Sunny Dubey
Go Girl! err... your honor.
I know that if you really NEED Internet access 24/7, you should be using something more expensive than a $30/month cable modem
That philosophy runs contrary to contract law. Price is irrelevant when a contract binds the relationship -- if you really NEED Internet access 24/7, and a company advertises their access as 24/7 then you can reasonably expect them to fulfill that, regardless of price.
interesting, but not suprising, that she is a small claims judge. my experience (from when I once litigated against an old landlord) is that the small claims judges are actually more in touch with the people. They will help you out and make suggestions in court. They are used to big companies mauling the little guy, consequentially they don't put up with it.
This is why one of the first actions a company will take if you small claims court them is to have it moved to circuit court (a "higher" level court) rules of evidence are harder and the judges more "impartial" (lawyer friendly, not layman friendly)
Hopefully this will start to break us free from the cable company monopolies, my area allows only one, I would love to see equal access enforced like it is for long distance carriers. (at least in the US). Maybe then they will stop this bait and switch crap they like to play with bandwidth, 120K the first month, then 90K , then 60K etc...
On a final note I would also like to say, that must be one of the most shagable judges I have ever seen...
Papa Legba come and open the gate
- a book on how to use the Ontario Small Claims Court system
- a link to some useful information, including a PDF document on the Small Claims system
Is that enough?Of course, if there are enough people that have been pissed off by Rogers, we could go for a huge class-action lawsuit, but I have a feeling that a grassroots small-claims onslaught will be much more effective, and put more cash back into your pocket if you've been affected.
Hope she wins
The judge's expectations of receiving a refund for downtimes on her cable line are not out of line at all. If Rogers were smart, they'd do what Verizon does on their (rather shitty) DSL lines - a free day of service for every hour of downtime. I've managed to get several weeks of free service so far without having to put any pressure whatsoever on the Verizon support reps. They won't bring it up, but their guidelines must state that if a customer asks about that particular policy, the rep must go ahead with crediting the account with the requested hours. They probably do check their logs to see if your claim of a down router - biggest problem, especially on the weekends - is true, so don't push it too far. :)
--
Violence is necessary, it is as American as cherry pie.
H. Rap Brown
"It might set an interested precedent if the judge wins. As another poster mentioned, there's probably one of the usual "we disclaim any liability for it not working" sort of clauses somewhere in the agreement. (While the agreement for signing up with the cable company may not have been an actual "click-through" thing, the "it's not our fault if it doesn't work" is a common feature of such things)"
I seriously doubt that in such a case, that kind of click thru agreement is legal to begin with.
No commercial contract can overrule civil or criminal law, and it's against the law in most places to take money for services you do not deliver. IMO, such agreements are there more to make the consumer feel like "We're the PHONE company, we dont' fucking care, and you can't do SHIT about it!".
Most likely, this cable company is advertising their internet service, and the claims they make in those ads ALONE makes them liable to provide the service. I doubt they have a "we take no responsibility but will happily charge you if because of our negligence, it doesn't work" disclaimer in their flashy copy.
I've been lucky with RoadRunner so far. The service was connected promptly, the speed is excellent (my download speed has more to do with how fast the server on the OTHER end is!), and other than a couple of brief weather-related outages, has been reliable as hell.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Apparently this needs to be cleared up still...
Unless the laws are so totally different in all parts of North America, the basic law is simple: you can't just not pay a bill. Here's a great analogy from my past: I was renting an apartment from a company that didn't have the building up to code. Sure, I could have just refused to pay my rent until the problem was fixed, right? Wrong. Had I done that, my landlord would have every right to charge me late fees, declare my account delinquent, whathave you. Simply put, it wasn't my right to deny payment, because it had not been a finding of law that stated I didn't need to make payment. It is up to a court judge (note: not just a judge who's acting as a citizen as in this case) to decide the fate.
Faced with this, I am in a hard place. I don't want to pay my bill because that makes me feel like I'm saying it's all okay--and things certainly are not okay. So what am I to do? Simple. I file suit. Another option would be (if I intend to file suit) to send a formal complaint to the clerk of courts with a check for the disputed amount. The court will keep hold of the funds until things are sorted out. The clerk will also notify the defendant of the funds that have been sent in as well as the complaint. This will effectively "lock" the account so that it does not become delinquent.
I really wish people would better understand that this is a very important point: one cannot go without paying off a debt. It doesn't matter how right you think you are; and it doesn't matter if the other party isn't living up to its end of the contract. If you wish to show that the defendant hasn't lived up to its portion of the contract, the absolute worst thing you can do is break the contract yourself. It is imperative that if you are going to make a claim that you haven't made a single breach of the contract. It's almost always the plantiff's burden to show proof, and by breaking the contract by withholding payment you have started off on the wrong foot.
Last comment: if you are ever thinking about withholding payment, call your lawyer first. Don't get yourself screwed by doing something that's just going to hurt you. The courts here simply throw out cases where the plantiff withheld payment. This is because it looks like the plantiff is trying to get away with free products or services. You can either pay the bill and then file suit for that money back (and yes, that's a great idea at times) or send the money to the clerk of courts. But doing neither of those things will cause bad things.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
This is obviously excessive. There is no way this judge, nor anyone else, could get that sum of money from any ISP. It just isn't going to happen.
Now, what the judge is trying to do is make a point. She doesn't want Roger's Cable to get away without major negative press. She probably doesn't care much about whether she wins or loses, and I can't blame her. Sometimes finding a way to tell potential consumers to stay away is worth a loss in court.
Long, cute, or funny Sigs are just another form of over compensation, used by geeks, nerdz, etc.
Puuull-eeze. Pray tell, what effect would that be? YOU cancelled your television service. The issue was the cable internet service, not TV.
As for breech of contract etc, waiting for hours is standard practice for @home tech support, and they can't wait to get your ass off the phone. I would not classify it as breach of contract, i would call it their standard service policy, along with every other ISP's (see below). Waiting is part and parcel of the game lady. If you want a tech at your beckon call, 24/7, be prepared to pony up the dosh to pay for it, cuz your paltry $40/month don't cut it.
And now for my OT tantrum about @home:
Those know-nothings at Shaw/Rogers make $17.00/hr to basically leave you on hold, and tell you to reboot your computer, or run winipcfg. GAWD! They have none of the shit-work of a normal ISP and yet my company (may they rot in hell) that pays me $9.50/hr just layed off our ENTIRE office.
Phew, I *really* needed to get that off my chest.