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NY Wrests $1 Million From Verizon Wireless
netbuzz writes "Unlimited really means unlimited, even in advertising. So says the New York State Attorney General's Office in squeezing a $1 million settlement out of Verizon Wireless for disconnecting 13,000 of its customers who had the temerity to believe that the unlimited service they were promised came with unlimited service. Verizon's statement explaining the settlement is a gem, too."
It's all about the lawyers. They'll be taking more than $8 each. Have you seen the ad they are running in magazines for the settlement over Herbalife? Max payout per person - $75 (it will be a lot less). Money going to the law firm - not including costs - over 2 million. Class action suits benefit the law firms and not anyone else.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Perhaps they think they've learned their lesson - but they think the lesson isn't "Do what's right" to you and me, but rather "How can we make our business plan legally defensible?"
Seems if they get a lot more specific, then they'd have a greater chance defending it in court.
And if all of us geeks go over to other carriers, will Verizon notice? We're a pretty small minority.
Class Actions are mostly to smack the company so it will stop doing whatever it's doing.
There is a war going on for your mind.
Are they still branding their wireless as "unlimited" to new customers? Existing customers that signed up for "unlimited" wireless should have exactly that - at least until their contract expires.
Despite their cute (though repetitive at this point) commercials, VZW is still a bad choice for a cell company in my opinion. T-Mobile OTOH seems to make good where verizon fails. Heck, they keep sending me free phones with a couple months of free service to try them out. Ok, so i'm a corporate customer but meh.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
"You iknow, I'm a geezer; I don't remember businesses being run by thieves and sociopaths when I was young. Maybe my memory is bad, or I was naive. Or maybe we're heading for another world wide depression like tha 1930s?"
You grew up in the period between the 1930s and the 1980s? I'm sure there were corporate thieves and miscreants in that period, but the tale of the stats say they weren't as rampant as today. Not even close.
Before the 1930s, man, they were effin' brutal. These days, they're trying really hard to bring back those 'Good Old Days' of yankee 'caveat emptor' capitalism. Really really hard.
It's up to us, the people, to stop being so apathetic, turn off that stupid Nip/Tuck, and call for and vote in some corporate responsibility. Start with boycotts and then put pressure on politicians. Stop letting these people think we don't care.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
The settlement was ONE million dollars. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the http://investor.verizon.com/profile/overview.aspx 88.1 billion they did in revenue last year, which they'll likely surpass this year.
That's 1/88,100 of their revenue. For comparison, if you're somewhere around the GDP per capita at PPP of the US at $40k per year, that's like charging you 45cents as a fine. Yeah, that's really going to modify some behavior.
The only people that got any real benefit from this situation were lawyers. Verizon isn't going to stop cutting off accounts that don't make money for them.
he forgot one other point of 'modifying corporate behavior': legal precedent. Now, it's been legally determined that 'unlimited means unlimited'. You now have a case to point to for future incidents. That's worth something.
Your all-you-can-eat buffet argument is actually quite apt. People's eating habits can be mapped, the limit being based on how much one person can physically consume, so restaurants rarely end up with problems.
Verizon should have played it safe, looking at their resources and the real limits, (a customer using the maximum bandwidth 24/7), and they should have charged appropriately for that service package based on their ability to deliver it. Promising unlimited usage to everybody was unrealistic. 10 or 20 people using the full bandwidth is a spike, but 13000 users is evidence of normal mass behavior which they obviously didn't plan for. --They made promises they couldn't keep and they lost the gamble.
The nature of contract law is that people and companies must be held accountable to the promises they make. Why should Verizon be treated any differently? When other companies fail to meet their obligations, the ideal model is to find some way to sever the deal in a manner which leaves the customer feeling that they were dealt with in good will, either through a refund or similar. Verizon handled itself without grace. They could have been up-front in saying, "Oops. We screwed up by signing a contract which we couldn't fulfill. To make it up to you, we'd like to offer the next two months at the same service level for the price you are currently paying, but after that we have to charge more. This will give you enough time to find another service provider. --Or if you want to cancel immediately, we'll give you back your money for the last two months." --Something like that would have shown good will and would have established new systems to avoid future problems with new clients. Instead they chose to act like dicks in the hope that nobody would sue.
I'm glad to see they lost that gamble as well.
-FL
This whole thing is talking about internet access over mobile phones. Not a single thing you posted is valid. if I had mod points i'd bitch slap this post.