phone contracts

[low_delta]

A Superior Court judge in California has ruled that the practice of charging consumers a fee for ending their cell phone contract early is illegal and violates state law.

Um... then why do they call it a contract? Is there a reason they let you out of your contract at all?

Comments

[eideteker.livejournal.com]

Not all contracts are enforceable. You cannot contractually enter into slavery (that's the example everyone on /. was using), for example.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Sure, but if I sign up for a phone, and they tell me I'm paying for two years, why shouldn't I expect to be bound by that contract? Why is a phone any different than an apartment, for example? Actually, a phone is such a small thing, you'd think it would be even harder to get out of.

[zaecus.livejournal.com]

I would suspect the rational for challenging cellphone contracts is based more on the concept of home phones. Not being able to easily change your service provider for your home phone caused a big shakeup in the industry because it was giving rise to some really predatory pricing practices.

So far, cellphone service providers have avoided the worst of that in most cases.

[ravengirl.livejournal.com]

That...cracks me up. Mostly because my huge pet peeve is that BOTH parties are charged when a call is made cell-to-cell and I think THAT is blatantly ripping off consumers. They don't do that in Europe, tell ya whut.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's pretty annoying to get charged for someone else's wrong number. Or worse - telemarketers or text spam

[dwivian]

Actually... they can charge a termination fee. They CAN'T charge an exhorbitant one. That's what was going on -- the fee was more than the value of the phone (at that point) plus a month or two. They got slammed for making it impossible (at a practical layer) to leave the contract, which is illegal.

[low-delta.livejournal.com]

Ah, that would explain it. Crappy journalism. No, I take that back - I didn't look far enough into the issue. Thanks!