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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."
Data Plans and Features (such as NationalAccess, BroadbandAccess, GlobalAccess, and certain VZEmail services that do not include a specific monthly MB allowance or are not billed on a pay-as-you-go basis) may ONLY be used with wireless devices for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) intranet access (including access to corporate intranets, email, and individual productivity applications like customer relationship management, sales force, and field service automation). These Data Plans and Features MAY NOT be used for any other purpose. Examples of prohibited uses include, without limitation, the following: (i) continuous uploading, downloading, or streaming of audio or video programming or games; (ii) server devices or host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, automated machine to-machine connections or peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing; or (iii) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections. This means, by way of example only, that checking email, surfing the Internet, downloading legally acquired songs, and/or visiting corporate intranets is permitted, but downloading movies using P2P file-sharing services and/or redirecting television programming content for viewing on laptops is prohibited. A person engaged in prohibited uses continuously for one hour could typically use 100 to 200 MB, or, if engaged in prohibited uses for 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, could use more than 5 GB in a month.
For individual use only and not for resale. We reserve the right to protect our network from harm, which may impact legitimate data flows. We reserve the right to limit throughput speeds or amount of data transferred, and to deny or terminate service, without notice, to anyone we believe is using one of these Data Plans or Features in any manner prohibited above or whose usage adversely impacts our network or service levels. Anyone using more than 5 GB per line in a given month is presumed to be using the service in a manner prohibited above, and we reserve the right to limit throughput speed or immediately terminate the service of any such person without notice. We also reserve the right to terminate service upon expiration of Customer Agreement term.
Verizon Wireless Plans, Rate and Coverage Areas, rates, agreement provisions, business practices, procedures and policies are subject to change as specified in the Customer Agreement. Emphasis mine.
They now have a site defining acceptable use.
So they really haven't learned their lesson. I personally think that CmdrTaco should sign up and start hosting Slashdot through it. Either that or point the loyal readers to a page he's hosting through it.
I would recommend prospective customers of Verizon to think twice and assess if they want to sign contracts with a company so inclined to assume a user of the service is guilty of copyright violations just because of the amount of data they are transferring. Couldn't someone watching YouTube all day or streaming video from another TV network site rack up this sort of data transferring?
My work here is dung.
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?
The verizon TOS is why I use Sprint. I can't get DSL, cable or even FIOS - I'm one of 2 homes on a street, and the companies don't want to lay half a mile of cable (from either direction) to get to us. My 60kB cellmodem is better than dialup.
When Sprint says "unlimited data" on my cellmodem plan, they actually mean it.
My net research revealed too many people who'd been bit by Verizon's bad habits. Glad to see the courts have spanked them.
All they had to do was turn one of their execs upside down and shake the change out of his pants.
Sheesh.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
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.
Let this set precedence and all the other states go after Verizon,Comcast and the others hard like this. hell please go after the Cellphone assholes as well.
They thrive on blatantly lying to the customer, Unlimited internet, unlimited calling, unlimited this that the other... they know they are lying. they need to be spanked hard and forced to not lie.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
What a bunch of sleazeballs, both Verizon AND the New York State's Attorney. I got halfway down TFA (Sorry, I know that's unslashdottish of me to RTFA but I'm not feeling well) before my stomach started turning and I was forced to hit the "back" button.
What Verizon did, from TFA, was FRAUD plain and simple. Their CEO and board of directors should be in prison, not made to take petty cash and give it to New York. In their defense I must say, why isn't MY nad-free AG doing anything?
However, I'm not the least surprised. Nobody from Sony went to prison for rooting millions of PCs, despite the fact that if you did to them what they did to me you'ld be in the slammer for years.
I didn't read far enough to see if they agreed to stop defrauding their customers. But hell, you expect thieves and con men to tell the truth in a contract? I mean, the agreement is about their LIES to begin with!
I'm looking for a new cell phone company. Is there one out there that is reletively sleaze-free? I was happy with Cingular for years, never went over my minutes (always had rollover minutes) and the bill was always the same, under $50. Then AT&T bought them out, and all of a sudden I got hit with a $150 bill. I didn't pay it. The next month they tacked on another $450 on top of the $150, and shut off my service. After shutting off my service, they tacked ANOTHER $150 for the month I was without service, including taxes on the service they never provided.
Verizon was on the list of possible replacements (I'm using pay as you go right now), so this story was just in the nick of time. Thank you, slashdot!
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?
-mcgrew
(Oblig link to my blagh posting about Sony rooting my box, titled "SONY MUST DIE!!!!")
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
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.
I figure class actions have three predominant purposes.
First, judicial efficiency: encourage binding settlement of disputes between large numbers of people (having lawyers profit from such settlements encourages lawyers to do this; it's capitalism);
Second, access to justice: provide remedy to those who would have no access to justice (even if that remedy is itself quite small);
Three, feedback: modify corporate behaviour.
While $80.00 per person appears minor, one would hope that a multi-million dollar settlement is relevant to modifying corporate behaviour (which is often dependent on the tax implications to the company of such a settlement). So while the individual remedy is meager, there is other value provided: resolving a large number of outstanding disputes (which would be prohibitively expensive to remedy individually, for the company or for those individuals), and it establishes boundaries for corporate behaviour.
So while the lawyers do profit, it is my belief that profit is both incidental and necessary to the predominant purpose of effective class action regimes. Mind you, profiteering (night champerty) is poor form, and while the lawyers ought to be entitled to a respectable profit for their efforts (as in all capitalistic efforts), the fees taken ought to be scrutinized based on the work done (difficulty, expertise, time, etc.) and the actual value provided to the class. While I've presented value in class actions above, you've highlighted one of the cornerstones of principle conflict in the regime: the conflict of interest between class members and their legal representation when it comes time to pay the lawyers. I believe the courts ought to approve the fees after the settlement, with the input of an appointed amicus curae who would represent the interests of the class as against their own lawyers.
"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!
I have difficulty with perceiving $1 million as significant to Verizon. Smack seems a bit strong. This to me looks more like a payoff to make the problem go away.
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?
There are two things Verizon could do: change the service or change the ads. They can't change the service because it's economically not feasible.
So, what this will mean is simply that ads will get slightly more prominent disclaimers saying something like
Verizon Unlimited Bandwidth*
*Subject to terms of service; file sharing, bandwidth sharing, public servers, or continuous data transfer are examples of prohibited activities.
This would probably be a public relations nightmare if people cared more. Googling the term "Verizon Unlimited", the first page doesn't even contain Verizon's website itself, except in the sponsored links. What it does contain are things such as:
"Verizon Limits Its "Unlimited" Wireless Broadband Service"
"Who's a Bandwidth Bandit? - The Checkout"
"Verizons Unlimited Data Plan Not So Unlimited"
"Verizon: "Unlimited bandwidth means 5GBs or less or we cancel your service"
Come on, is Dr. Evil the NYAG? That's not going to deter Verizon one bit.
The term unlimited means no limits.
There's no way to change the definition no matter what *legalsleeze* you throw at it.
If it's not unlimited, you can't use the term.
Just like most chocolate flavored cereals, if not made using real chocolate, have to say "chocolatey"..
Maybe they need to have the term "unlimitedey" or "unlimitedlike" or "pseudounlimited" instead.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
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.
Instead, imagine that you receive 2 or more such mass mailings: law firm 1 promises to seek an $80 refund, whereas law firm 2, by lowering its fee, promises to seek a $100 refund. Now capitalism can work the way it's supposed to.
Of course IANAL so feel free to point out the flaws of this idea. Is there a reason this isn't done now, given that there are plenty of hungry lawyers?
With:
Oh yeah? What's your number?
I think it's fair to say that the present system of binding without consent is inadequate, and opting out of the class being a class member's only option (so they may pursue legal remedy as an individual).
One problem with having two law firms working on the same action is that the lawyers cannot guarantee an outcome. One cannot say guarantee $80, the other $100, until a settlement has been reached. In fact, you have to agree to be part of the class of one firm or the other before you know how much you'd get. As well, a defendant would never agree to a certain settlement until they know the number of people they are settling with.
The way the plaintiffs make decisions in the class action for the class members is unfair. Typically there is a class representative (or a couple reps) who tell the lawyers what to do. As you may imagine, these reps are often "guided" into making certain decisions, based on the lawyers' assessment, and these decisions are binding on the whole class. What I think would be better is if the individuals in the settlement each had a choice to agree with a particular settlement proposal.
Contrast bankruptcy. There is generally a sophisticated mechanism for determining the rights of creditors when an entity goes bankrupt. Typically, creditors are divided up into groups, and a majority of each group must agree to the settlement. This provides every individual with the opportunity to provide input, and reject the settlement if it is unfair.
I see little reason why this shouldn't apply to class actions. It would allow class members to decide whether they think the settlement is fair to them. It would also give class members the opportunity to assess the lawyer fees. All to say, I think it would be better than the present class representative-as-dictator.
Ever file anything in small claims court against a large company? Not so easy. Just "serving notice" can be a challenge.
"I am not a lawyer"? Here I always thought people were talking about some kinky new product from Apple - the iAnal.
Apparently IANARS. (I am not a rocket scientist)
"But this one goes to 11!"
IAAL but I try to be a person also.
Had disconnected 13,000 users, he'd be in jail.
A corporate executive does it, and gets off scott free.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
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.
--- Do you believe in the day?
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
No, it's not legal precedent-- the case was not decided by a judge or jury, it was settled. Settlements do not become legal precedent. Thus, unlimited != "unlimited"
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.