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AT&T Buries ToS Changes In 2500-Page Guide
JagsLive points out a story from the business section of the L.A. Times which begins: "Judging from the phone company's voluminous new online customer manual, if you have a problem with your bill, too bad: AT&T has sent customers an 8,000-word service agreement that, among other things, says people will be given 30-day notice of price increases only when 'commercially reasonable' and that you can't sue the company. Oh, and if you don't like AT&T's terms — providing you can make your way through the company's 2,500-page 'guidebook' — your only recourse is to cancel service."
Whats this...a major telephone company screw over it's customers...why that's unheard of.
Upon receipt of said brick through your building, you accept, without any consent to agreement:
1. That the brick thrower shall not be held accountable for any damage, whether
accidental or purposeful, or any other damage caused at any point in time, espec
ially before the brick was thrown.
2. That you will only use your bare hands to pick up the damage caused by this brick.
3. That you accept these terms.
Sorry, but if I'm contracted to certain functions at certain price increments or allotments, I expect those to be honored. If one party decides to change the terms of the contract without discussing (let a lone receiving approval) from the other party, then the first party should be considered to be in breach of contract.
Or does this mean that I can send AT&T a "customer ToS" and say that I now get unlimited everything on my plan, and if they don't approve they can just walk away from the existing contract?
Those who believe the Internet is private,
find their privates are on the Internet.
Throughout the book, they added random chapters from War and Peace, the Bible, the Harry Potter books, and John McCain's medical records. Afterward, they intertwined them with the actual guidebook by referring to the passages in the text.
"To find customer support, tap the number of times Hermione knocked on Hagrid's door before he answered, in the chapter we copied into this guidebook fifteen pages ago, then the first two digits in the square root in the number of members in the Fellowship of the Ring, then the first name of the narrator in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde translated into ROT13 and then from letters into numbers."
I don't use many minutes. I am tempted to cancel from evil AT&T and get a monthly phone that is real cheap and no contract. Any comments on whether I will get screwed ?
It's an 8,000 word service agreement buried in a 2,500 page 'guidebook'.
At the time AT&T bought BellSouth, AT&T was certainly not the old long distance company. That had been bought by SBC a year or two previously. SBC renamed itself to AT&T, and that corporation swallowed BellSouth.
All of which is a shame, because BellSouth was actually a fairly decent company - well, fairly decent as monopolistic local telcos can be.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
even worse, it's an 8000 word service agreement "referencing" an online-only guidebook. And it still has clauses in it that e. g. CA courts have found unenforceable, but if your local courts haven't done so you're still stuck with them.
I'm aging rapidly, I bought a new game and had no idea if my machine was good for it.
It also makes me glad that I don't live in CA and that I am on Vonage.
No kidding. For what it's worth I really enjoyed my Bellsouth account and have been worried about the quality of service I'd get from AT&T ever since it switched over... didn't we break up that company for a reason??
Georgia courts (11th circuit) have also decided the same regarding similar terms that concast used.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Well, you can always sue. AFAIK, you can never really waive your right to sue, and clauses stating such are trivially easy to throw out.
Colbert explains it best. You can watch him on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6nuwQmhrZ8.
I used to have 3 separate AT&T accounts, with a total of 5 services...
- Home phone line
- Upgraded DSL
- Business phone line
- Cell phone (mine)
- Cell phone (wife's)
I canceled them ALL because of the AT&T/NSA wiretapping fiasco, and haven't looked back yet. I can't tell you all how good it feels to shed AT&T from my life. Seriously. I have T-Mobile for cellphones (they have great customer service AND coverage!), Comcast for Internet, and Vonage for business phone.
I have to tell you all again - it feels GOOD to be free from the telco giant. :) I would advise any sane person to do the same.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I haven't looked at the TOS in question, but its very very VERY common for there to be a clause stating, roughly, "Instead of suing us, you agree that we will settle all issues through arbitration." With the packed and underfunded court systems around the country, arbitration is often an attractive alternative to both sides (at least in theory).
It seems like the only recourse to lawyers honestly trying to do their best by dishonestly doing something that they know will benefit the company more than hurt it is to add weight to the honesty side of the calculus.
A class action lawsuit, with every single one of their customers as a participant, aimed at a punitive charge for violating known laws (their legal team knew that this was an unenforceable contract, and also knowingly tried to bury the contract so that customer would not see it) would add up to real money.
We wouldn't see it, of course (we'd get $10? each, total 100 million dollars?), but it would be large enough to make corporate lawyers put more weight on the "what if we get caught" side of the equation. This would benefit every consumer in a large number of industries.
As far as I'm aware, AT&T can say whatever the hell they want in a notice like that. Whether any of it is legally enforceable is another matter entirely. I mean, contracts require certain niceties like, you know, both sides actually agreeing to them. I imagine this will be treated as a contract of adhesion in the worst possible light if it ever actually comes to court.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't a Stateside judge just quash something like this a few weeks ago?
Yup, but my answer is going to be pretty much worthless, because I don't have a link available for you. Try searching Slash stories from a couple weeks ago.
Groklaw still has it: McKee vs. AT&T
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
Yes and no. You can ALWAYS file suit. period fucking dot.
However immediately following the companies lawyers will file a motion to dismiss based on the binding arb clause. YMMV at that point but a judge CAN order binding arbitration.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
I tried searching for text in the Guidebook and, for a long time, found I was more likely than not to receive an HTTP 500 error. Eventually I did get results returned though all returned hits (that I got, anyway) were links to individual PDFs. There were often dozens of linked PDFs with no real way of knowing which ones were really going to be helpful at all to you. The search function is, in a word: useless
Nice site. (For sufficiently small values of nice, that is.)
I was going to switch my internet access at home from Covad to ATT. Until now.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Heck, I should have tried this before but the search results I get show symbols denoting that the information is in a PDF but the PDF images aren't links to anything. They're just pictures. The site is even less than worthless.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Anyone else notice that AT&T sends you a notice of updated iPhone firmware that starts with "AT&T Free Msg: Apple has released ..." BUT when you get the bill - lo and behold you've been charged $0.20? I only notice this because I never use text messaging. I wonder if there is a way to disable this "feature" . . .
I thought it was a good idea
Colbert explains how AT&T, BellSouth, Cingular, SBC, Ohio Bell, Indiana Bell, ${Other} Bell each bought one another and each others' subdivisions and rebranded the bought parts (with a hilariously confusing arrow diagram), then concludes that:
Due to American anti-trust regulations, we have gone from this ... to this ...
[map of USA, parts of Canada and Mexico are showing; a caption says "1980:", there the AT&T logo and name, USA is blue to indicate that it's all pwned by AT&T]
[the same map, with AT&T's now logo and their name in a new font]
He then refers to Terminator 2; no matter how many pieces you split AT&T into, it'll always come back together again.