Telcom Fraud: The Previous Generation

theodp writes "Remember back in the day when telcom firms were charged with simple, good old-fashioned consumer fraud? AT&T and Lucent got a history lesson Friday, agreeing to a $300 million settlement related to claims that they used confusing billing statements to mislead consumers into paying lease charges for their home telephones, including the timeless rotary Traditional, that totaled many times more than the actual value of the phones."

Comments

Let me guess

[I Love this Company!]

The "confusing" billing statements were mailed to residents of Palm Beach County?

Re:The leases are a scam.

[srw]

True story:

A few years back (1992-4) I worked as a counselor at a summer camp. We had a fairly strict policy about not letting kids phone home unless there was a really good reason. One of the kids in my cabin was given permission to phone home, but he then started crying. It took me a while to find out his problem: The phone at the camp was one of the classic rotary wall phones and he didn't know how to use it.

I would guess this kid was 8 or 9 at the time.

I dialed for him, and all was well. He'd be 16 to 19 now. I hope he's learned to use a rotary phone since then.

-srw

"Sale" in the ads, "lease" in the gray print

[Jerry]

I purchased a Princess phone for the kitchen at a "Sale" advertized by AT&T at their phone center. I had it for ten years. When I called to cancel my phone service because I was moving the clerk reminded me to return the Princess phone. I was stunned. I told her I payed $30 for it at a phone sale. She said "check the light gray print on the back side of your bill of sale." In print so light you could barely read it was the word 'lease', even though the front was 'sales' invoice. This lawsuite is punishment for that kind of deceptive business practice. They got their phone back. Every component was taken apart and reduced to its minimum parts, all were put into the box, except for the screws and nuts, throughly shaken, and the box was taken to the company, sealed up. I left with my refund, they had "their" phone.