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T-Mobile Phone Unlocking Lawsuit May Proceed
Billosaur writes "Wired is reporting that the California Supreme Court has refused to review two lower court decisions involving a class-action lawsuit against T-Mobile over their policies regarding early termination and phone unlocking. The Court rejected the reviews without comment, opening the door to the lawsuit, which aims to block T-Mobile from collecting a $200 early termination fee from users. Also on the table: an order for T-Mobile to disclose the types of phone-locking technology that may be in use on customer's phones. The ramifications if the lawsuit is successful would be to allow phone users in California to unlock their phones, and might lead to further lawsuits nationwide."
I have a T-Mobile MDA, and they had absolutely no problem unlocking the phone for me prior to me making an international trip so I could use a competing network. I don't understand why some of these people are trying to sue for that, T-Mobile is going to have some much evidence to the contrary that their case will likely be found without merit (IANAL).
As far as the 200 dollar disconnect fee, I don't agree with that with any carrier, and some use it as a bludgeoning stick to keep people continuing their service under the threat of "breach of contract".
Cellular service should be something someone can walk into, pay their bill, and walk out of without any fear of reprisal as long as they paid their bills in full.
-The Cake is a Lie!
It's high time the American mobile phone market is made more open and interoperable.
In GSM-dominated countries, swapping phone service has got nothing to do with your mobile phone. You just remove your SIM-card and put in another one. Conversely, when you buy a new phone, you just put your old SIM card in it and you're done.
The rationale for a termination fee is usually that handsets are subsidized. But a better solution is for the FCC to open up the industry so that there is a separate market for mobile handsets. This will give customers more options to buy handsets that they know will work with any carrier, and competition in the mobile handset market will bring prices down.
Carriers can still offer subsidies on handsets with contract termination restrictions - but users will then opt for it willingly - ignoring the option of other available handsets.
2+2=5 for very large values of 2.
I agree that "a contract is a contract", and it's silly to go to court just because you don't like something you initially, willingly signed up for.
On the other hand though, the provider subsidy story is a little "flimsy" too, at times. For example, when I was with Verizon, I wanted one of the new Treo 650s when it was a brand new phone. Buying it with a 2 year extension on my contract, through Verizon, turned out to STILL be over $100 more expensive than buying the phone outright from some of the dealers selling them on the Internet.
The phone providers seem to like quoting MSRP as the "real price" of the phone, and then knock $100-200 off of that if you sign up for 1 or 2 years with them. Reality is, they're probably still making a profit on the phones after locking you into those contracts, because they're paying nowhere NEAR the MSRP on them.
This is kind of stupid. Even if all the major US carriers were prevented from locking phones to their network, it would only open the market between T-Mobile and AT&T, and separately between Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Both use totally different networks (GSM vs CDMA2000), so nothing would be open.
Further, as 3G rolls out, T-Mobile and AT&T's versions of UTMS totally incompatible, meaning that their next generation of phone will be naturally locked to a single provider. They didn't do that on purpose, there just isn't available bandwidth in the US to share the same band.
The real solution--rather than enriching attorneys to raise frivolous lawsuits that won't accomplish anything--is to open up the TV spectrum and insist that it actually be open, as Google has been pushing for. That would rapidly obsolesce the existing mobile networks however, leaving them open for replacement as well. Verizon/Sprint/AT&T have spent billions building out old fashioned 2.5/3G mobile service, and aren't excited about the prospect of having it all thrown in the trash can.
How AT&T Picked Up the iPhone: A Brief History of Mobiles
you need to call the international support line and request help acting dumb.
Me: Hello. Int'l support? Hi, could you help me to act dumb?
Int'l Support: I'm sorry sir, but you're already an AT&T customer. You've already shown that you can act dumb all by yourself.
This guy's the limit!
T-Mobile will give you the unlock code after you have been a customer for more than 90 days. I have had multiple phones from them over the 5 years I have been a customer and they have unlocked every one as soon as I get it - while in contract or month-to-month. You just have to ask.
Warning: incoherent rant ahead...
In the UK I've had problems with T-Mobile...
Although my contract has expired, they still refuse to unlock my phone unless I pay them!
At the point where the eighteen-month contract was due to expire within three days, they informed me that they would be charging me for another month regardless of whether I wanted the line or used it. Now when I call they just redirect me to someone who effectively repeats 'terms and conditions' until one of us hangs-up.
That was eighteen *long* months, where each month involved being 'overcharged' by upto 100% due to the fine-print in their contract allowing them to basically charge me 50p per minute (including whilst sat listening to hold-music for 17mins, every time) when I called to try to resolve the problems with the (£400) partially-configured non-3G '3G' PDA-phone they sold me that couldn't and still can't receive picture messages; that allows them to exclude most of my calls and texts from the £35/month that I was paying them.
Now they're attempting to ruin my credit rating by passing my details on to a debt-collection agency to recover the £19 they believe I owe them because I refused to keep paying after my contract had expired.
Every time I questioned the fairness of their tactics, their response was 'all mobile companies in the UK do it'. Sadly, this may be true, although I've not yet experienced this (yet).
One of their favourite games is responsibility-tennis, whereby the customer service line staff (read: core company) distances themselves from knowledge-of- and culpability-for the actions of the staff in their stores and vice-versa - the outcome being that there's no way for me to get any kind of satisfaction after being sold a phone which the sales person claimed was 3G but isn't; after the sales person tricked me into taking an expensive contract by telling me that to take the PDA phone I wanted, I must take a particular contract (later revealed to be untrue by customer services); after the sales-person sold me a per-month fixed-price contract which later was revealed to exclude almost all calls/texts made by me.
This is by far one of the most evil public-facing companies I've had the misfortune to deal with. They are, in effect, organised (really well organised) crime; with a twist, they use the legal system to trick, misdirect and coerce their customers.
If they were they only mobile company, I'd rather not have a mobile.
It's particularly frustrating that they're split in to multiple companies; one side-effect being that any class-action suit in the US can't result in UK customers being treated fairly.
I'm soo tired of living in this climate where companies use every tactic available to them to screw the customer, again and again then use the system to penalise any dissent.
As a final note at the end of my rant....
At the end of my contract, they wouldn't unlock my phone because "they're not required to by law" lol. This, to me, is extremely short-sighted behaviour. Don't these companies realise that customers have memories and talk to each other? I'll be quite happy to take reasonable steps to ensure that no more of my money ever reaches them, direcly or indirectly, but that's not quite enough, is it?