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..."

Comments

You want a case aganist Rogers?

[Sludge]

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

Re:Read the contract

[coyote-san]

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.)

And justice for none

[joq]

Some of the things are typical of most peoples complaints regarding ISPs. So here's what I think of it all. Firstly when it comes to justice, a Judge in a court (think about this deeply for a second) is likely to pull in a win. Call it intuition, but if you were a cop you would be less likely to give your `brother cop` a ticket. On to the complaint.

Judge Reade's lawsuit says Rogers advertising promised quick and easy access to the Internet, plus "an enhanced multimedia experience and technical support 24 hours a day."

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.

Instead, she says, the system rarely worked.

Some days, she couldn't connect to the Internet at all. At other times, she says the connection would shut down when she or her teenaged children were using it.

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.

That gives me an idea...

[outlier]

According to the article, The company says its written agreement with Internet subscribers offers no warranty against "uninterrupted use or operation of the equipment or services."

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).

Did she have any choice?

[CaptainCarrot]

Most places in the US, cable companies are local monopolies and are not required at this time to make their infrastructure available to any outside ISPs. Is it the same in Canada? Could Judge Reade have simply gone to another broadband provider, or was Rogers the only possible source?

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.

Re:holy cow!!!

[rgmoore]

Now only if more bad stuff would happen to judges...

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.

Oh, the horror

[rmst]

'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!

Small claims hmmm.

[Papa Legba]

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...

Small-claims how-to

[delfstrom]

For other Rogers@Home customers, here's a few resources that you can use to take them to small claims court:

• 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.

No way.

[clark625]

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.