A California Superior Court judge dealt a major blow to the Telecom players as he ruled that "charging consumers a fee for ending their cell phone contract early is illegal and violates state law." Sprint-Nextel got spanked to the tune of $18.2 million for past fees collected, plus they have been ordered to abandon their current efforts to collect $54 million from customers who have terminated their contracts early.
What will be the fallout? You can expect an appeal, especially since allowing this ruling to stand will create a tidal wave of lawsuits against the wireless phone carriers throughout the other 49 states. Reminds me of the movie -- Runaway Jury. As Gene Hackman said as the defense attorney, -- "All you need is ONE...one ruling (and all will fall)."
This ruling will impact all of us who are wireless creatures, as brought out in Pam Pugmire's post "Do You Have Connectile Dysfunction?". I know when it comes to the relocation business our Moving Helpers often can only get in contact with people with cell phones, because the landlines have already been disconnected. If this ruling stands, at least in California, you will be able to cancel your cell phone service without fear of being taken to the woodshed by the Telecom giants. That is going to force the telephone companies to compete a lot harder to retain their customers since anyone will be able to leave at any time.
More than likely there will be a modifcation to the ruling as the FCC will probably step in and try to find a modified solution. At the very least, early termination fees will probably be changing --- in our favor.
Nice to have a little good news and maybe keep a little more money from leaving our pockets.
;)
;)
Boy wouldn't that be nice! It is frustrating when you are stuck with a service provider and can;t get out without a big fee!