Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Can Your Cell Phone Provider Change Your Contract? Read The Fine Print

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2003 06:15:57 -0500

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/news/WABC_7side_110702cellcontract.html

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Can Your Cell Phone Provider Change Your Contract? Read The Fine Print

(New York-WABC, November 7, 2002)
—
It's a lesson Seven On Your Side is always teaching: Read the fine print. But sometimes even that is not enough. Case in point, cell phone companies that change your contract at will. But you can always place a call to Tappy Phillips and Seven On Your Side.

If you have a cell phone, you might want to take a look at your service contract, the terms of which can be changed by many cell phone service providers whenever they wish. It happened to one Long Island man, so he picked up the phone and called for Seven On His Side.

Frank Classie makes his living moving earth for the town of Brookhaven. But he says it was like trying to move a mountain when he went up against telecommunications giant, Nextel.

Frank Classie, Nextel Customer: "It gets me really angry. It really does."

Earlier this year, Frank's Nextel bill had a notice that surprised him. It said that his "nights" were shrinking. His free calls used to start at 8:00pm, now they wouldn't start until 9:00pm. To make matters worse, instead of billing by the second, the notice said calls would now be rounded to the next full minute.

Classie: "I was always under the impression that when you went through with a contract, you have to fulfill the terms of the contract."

But that's not always the case. Nextel's contract, in fact, states the "company may change this agreement at any time." The contract goes on to say that if the customer makes a payment or uses the service after the effective date of the change, the "customer is deemed to have accepted the changes."

When Frank tried to get out of his contract, he found more bad news.

Classie: "If I was to terminate the contract, I would be subject to a $200 termination fee."

That's right in the contract too, which says even if Nextel changes the terms, if the customer terminates services, they face a $200 fee.

And Nextel is not alone. While not all companies charge termination fees, contracts from AT and T, Cingular, Verizon, and T-Mobile all say they can make changes to their contracts at any time.

Congressman Anthony Weiner, 9th District (D): "All these companies know they can get away with this because there is virtually no regulatory oversight of the cell phone service."

Congressman Anthony Weiner has introduced legislation to put the FCC in charge of wireless telephone service, but it's been in committee for a year and a half. He says that as long as cell phones are unregulated, there's not much a consumer can do.

Congressman Weiner: "Usually you say, 'buyer beware.' Read your contract very carefully. Sometimes, like in the case with Nextel, it doesn't matter how carefully you read the contract, they could come back and change the provision of it anytime."

When we talked to Nextel, they said because Frank is unhappy, they will give him 200 additional free minutes and enhance his voicemail service. When I asked the spokesperson why they change the contract terms midstream, the answer was, because we can.

So if this happens to you, the best advice is to complain, and be persistent. If you don't get a satisfactory answer, take your complaint to a supervisor, even write a letter to the president of the company.

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Sunday, January 12, 2003

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