Slashdot Mirror
FCC To Hold Hearings On Early Termination Fees
Isaac-Lew sends word of an article in the Washington Post reporting that on June 12 the FCC will hold a hearing regarding cellphone early termination fees. The Commission may look at early termination fees for TV and Internet service as well. The wireless carriers are taking a Bre'r Rabbit approach toward possible FCC regulation of early termination fees — the FCC's intervention would pre-empt a number of class-action lawsuits going forward against Verizon, Sprint, and others. These suits, stemming from state regulations, could cost the carriers billions. "...the carriers have renewed a lobbying effort in recent weeks to persuade the FCC on a legal definition that would stave off the state lawsuits on cancellation fees. On May 6, 2008, Verizon Wireless chief executive Lowell McAdam and the company's chief lobbyist, Tom Tauke, met with [FCC Chairman] Martin, urging him to adopt a federal policy, according to FCC records."
Just in case there are those who do not know, in canada at least the providers always have a uncontracted phone price. These prices tend not to be advertised much though, and many of the salesmen are comissioned based on contracts not the devices themselves.
Be sure to ask. Repeatedly. And with different agents.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Well, maybe we'll get market forces at work for cell phone prices. In Europe, you CAN get unlocked phones that cost $25, $50 or $100. The cost of production to store of the iPhone was initially about $250 and should currently have gone down greatly everything else is just markup. However, I still can't get an unlocked phone in the US (even the simplest ones without any fancy stuff like bluetooth or 3G) for less than $150 if I buy it with my carrier. The Blackberries can easily cost more than $500 if you don't want to get locked in. Getting an open source phone that has lower production rate and more components (bluetooth, 3G, touch screen) is cheaper than that.
I would like a cell phone market where you can go to the mall, go into a cell phone store and order what you want, then go into your preferred carriers store and get what you want. Off course the prices should reflect that, knowing AT&T, Verizon or Sprint, they're just going to maintain the prices for subscriptions and jack up the prices of the cell phones.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Check out the following Orange UK store handset page - note the text at the bottom which says 'The prices shown here are a guide based on an average plan costing £35 a month. The price of your phone or device may change according to the plan you choose.':
http://shop.orange.co.uk/shop/show/handsets/pay_monthly/all/all
Then later they try to stick you with termination charges even though your contract might have been over for *years*. I know lots of people they have tried this on. That's called merchantability. The service they provide has to meet normal standards or you have the right to cancel your contract, and you should. It's actually quite easy since people have lots of complaints about cellular service. A friend of mine had 11 Verizon windows mobile based phones in 12 months. They kept sending him a new one when he had trouble. Obviously that was either not the problem or they couldn't fix it. But with evidence of 11 phone replacements in 12 months his contract is pretty much toast.
I believe in having all cellphone carriers in breech of contract as soon as possible. I did it to my current carrier. I told them what problems I had and how long they had to address them, or I was canceling my contract with them. Sent them certified mail. They called me and said "I can't absolve you of your contract. My response, "I don't need you to, I already canceled it".
Nothing happened, I went on to use their service until the contract would have expired normally. But they would have gotten nowhere if I had dumped them, because I have certified mail and contemporaneous notes. That's all it takes. I'd have just said "See you guys in court". As long as I have letters to them outlining the complaints and no evidence they have addressed them, well, you just DON'T have to put up with service deficiencies, not in the US. Things have to meet usability standards. It's the law.
One other little known fact. If the carrier changes anything salient about their service or their contract during your contract and you don't agree, you have 30 days to cancel without penalty. Verizon and Tmobile both changed their text messaging rates a couple years ago, and if you knew you could cancel. They won't tell you, they keep it quiet. And there is nothing they can do about it. It's right in the contract, as required by law.
Can you imagine? Every Verizon customer, able to cancel their contract without penalty? Why wouldn't you take that opportunity, for free?
.
What it comes down to is this: I was unknowingly placed by Verizon into a contract I never agreed to, and then was charged an early termination fee quitting it! That is the definition of unethical, ...
And it used to be illegal. Time was when contract law required a valid signature by both parties to be valid.
But welcome to the New! Improved! world of American corporate law, where you can find yourself liable for the terms of a contract that you've never seen and never signed. Big corporations can just create the contract in their database, put your name on it, and fine you if you violate it. And they can change the terms of the contract without notifying you.
Of course, one of the facts of life that enables this behavior is that you would probably win if you challenged them in court. But it would cost you thousands of dollars to do that, not to mention all the time you'd have to take off from work. And a decade or so later, after you won, all you'd actually have is a court order, which the corporation can simply ignore. If you want it enforced, you'll have to file a second case to enforce the first decision. This is recursive, of course, and eventually you'll die without collecting anything. So they don't care; they don't have to (as Lily Tomlin so elegantly put it).
But it could be worse. American contracts end at death, and aren't inherited by offspring. Consider the situation in India, where there are some millions of people in "debt slavery", owing money they can never earn enough to pay off on a debt inherited from an ancestor. So it could be worse. Maybe in another few decades, it will be.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.