Read This Before Considering a Lawsuit!

great post and advice Zaphod.....thanks.

 

Great advices!

 

Interesting reading.. One other point to consider, I have in the past redlined certain paragraphs in contracts because they were either un-enforcable or placed requirement on me that realistically violated my Constitutional rights. The worst was a morality clause. Not that I would have violated it, but morality is subjective to a society as a whole. I pointed this out to the rep and had him initial and date the modification. I realize that this may be legally questionalble but if the rep is having people sign contracts then he is acting as an officer for that company. Realizing that having the power to negotiate a contract and being a worker bee is vastly different. I'll would rather go into court showing that I had contested the point and the rep allowed the modification. Gotta keep the sharks on their toes ya know!

 

I know for a fact that Verizon does not allow and redlining of a contract, in fact any changes in contract terms have to be approved by the legal department....most of the contracts also state somewhere in them that they are the "entire contract" and no verbal or written agreement by a sales rep would supercede that document....at least something to that effect.

But most people never read their contracts and even less understand the reasons for them.

 

What any company's policy allows or disallows does not change the fact that two parties entering a contract have equal rights to amend that contract. Verizon may decline the amendments and the client has the right to find another vendor. I have personally amended several contracts. They always complain. Too bad. I have rights too.

 

Good post.

To consumers: I'd like to emphasize how much of an impact your local (city, boro, township etc) government has on your wireless service. Your local ordinances and zoning board decisions affect your service more than any other factor.

If your service stinks, go to the Township building and read the wireless ordinance and check past decisions.

In addition to applications for new sites being rejected outright, other factors restricting covrage include (but are not limited to):

1. highly restrictive height regulations in commercial and industrial zones - e.g. 40ft max.
2. fraudulent zoning maps - e.g. zoning a 20 acre D.O.T depot as "residential"
3. some towns allow cell sites on municipal property only (NJ esp). This delays deployment and leads to less than ideal siting and poor coverage.
4. setbacks: a 100% or 125% setback in an area that has only 1 acre lots means that the antenna support structures can only be about 50' high - max.
and on and on...:deadhorse

It's usually not a lack of willingness on the part of the carriers to build new sites - Often, it's just against the "law" to do so.

 

yes, good post, and advice. thanks for sharing.

 

Great Advice. I had a few annoying experiences in a row with cellular plans so I promote prepaid service.

Case for prepaid

Another Case for Prepaid

I did get upset, but I am paying them back by promoting prepaid. It has changed recently and now is a good deal for even medium users and not just light or credit challenged users. If you don't like your prepaid provider, just go to another without worrying about the contract.

 

This is my first post so hopefully I am in the right forum to get some feedback.

As a member in a class action suit against Sprint I received notice that as a proposed settlement I can receive a credit when I continue to use Sprint and a lesser amount if I accept a prepaid phone card(1.50-3.00)

Why should the courts encourage claimants to continue to use a service provider who has violated the law? The court, by endorsing this type of settlement, is allowing itself to become a marketing tool for Sprint and in effect rewarding Sprint for violating the law.

As we all know as a participating member of a class action suit our reimbursement is miniscule compared to the lawyers fee. I don't begrudge the lawyers getting paid but perhaps we can get them to make the reimbursements more meaningfull. I would like to propose an option be given to class participants that they can choose to have their settlement be donated to a charity(approved by the court) in the form of a dollar amount.

Think of the impact that these funds could have on a charity. While the individual amounts paid to individuals is small, if a large number of the class selected this option, it could run into millions. And perhaps the more enlightened attorneys representing the class might evn donate part of their fee to the charity as well.

I would welcome any thoughts on this proposal.

 

I wish this had been around to read when I had my problem with Cingular.

 

Please tell me if I have a case.

In March of 05 I purchased 2 verizon phones with a 2 year contract through a third party vendor called letstalkamerica.com. Two days after purchasing the phones (I hadn't even received the phones in the mail yet) I decided I could get a better deal buying them directly from verizon. I called the 3rd party vendor to cancel my contract. They told me to ship the phones back as soon as I receive them, and once they got the phones back they would credit back my purchase and cancel my account with no early termination fee. I did as they told me to do and got confirmation that my account was closed.

Shortly after that, I opened another account with verizon directly. At this point, I assume everything is going accordingly. A month goes by and I get two bills in the mail. The account that was supposedly closed was still open. I called verizon immediately to resolve the issue. I fax over documents from letstalkamerica.com stating that the phones were received and my credit card was credited. Verizon then told me they would close the account with no early termination fee and apologized for the inconvenience. Another month goes by and I get another bill in the mail for the same account that was supposed to be closed. I call verizon again to get the situation resolved. The rep. I talked to the previous month obviously didn't do her job because I had to fax the docs over a second time. This time I get confirmation that my account was credited.

Now, a year later, (since then my family has moved out of our apartment and into a house) we are applying for an equity loan and I am informed that there is a judgement against us for about $350 from verizon. It took me awhile to realize that it was probably the account that was supposed to have been closed. The reason why this went on as long as it did was because they couldn't contact us due to the fact that we moved. I call verizon a year later, and again, have to fax over the same documents and go through the process all over again. Meanwhile, our credit score has gone down 40 points and we have an account in collections THAT DOES NOT BELONG THERE. This all happened last week. I call verizon today, and the account is still not credited because the people over there are totally incompetant and never follow through with what they're supposed to do. I am wondering if I have grounds for a good small claims lawsuit. There really is no amount of money they can credit us to compensate for our credit score going down and the fact that I can't even get a home equity loan because of this. I would appreciate any input as to what I should do.

 

I'm sorry to see that nobody every replied to this, I'm not sure if you're still interested in what users have to say about your quandry but I believe someone should comment for archival purposes, so I shall.

While you have a damages suit (small claims) it couldn't possibly equal out to the damages that have been incurred. However, a small claims suit could have that collection account easily expunged from your credit history, sadly you would need to go after both the agent (at the very least via written complaints to the BBB and state organizations as posted above) and Verizon. Before you do that I have to ask though, how well prepared are you and do you have any evidence to give supporting your claims that verizon had cancelled the account prior. I don't mean to sound condascending but always remember the burden of proof, if you can't proove that your point is correct never expect a civil judge to side with you.

 

Thank you your advice!

 

the answer is ALLTEL!

 

That isn't the answer for everyone for a couple of reasons. 1 & most important is they don't provide service everywhere, they are considered a regional carrier & not a National one. As an example here in NJ we can not get Alltel service.
2nd is not every carrier works for everyone, everyone needs to try different carriers to find the one that works best for them, and until there is 100% coverage for everyone on some carriers that will always be the best advise to give people, once there is full coverage by all the carriers then it comes down to price & options.

 

fair enough you cannot get every area code... i am hoping something good comes of these 700 mhz auctions

 

Excelent post and hopefully every one that has complained reads this thread as it for sure should open the user's eye and guide him/her before taking any action.

 

nice read.
thank you!@#!#