 RickPremium,MVM
join:2001-02-06
Waterbury, CT | Not sure I agree While I guess it's nice of Verizon to do this, I think i'm more on the side of Sprint on this issue.
If a person negotiates a contract the terms of it should be adhered to on both sides. And, in these types of contracts the number of minutes and price per minute is a key point of those agreements. Usually, the plans call for more favorable rates the more minutes you buy and less favorable rates the less minutes you buy.
I think that further demonstrates the importance of this within these contracts and points to the reasons people subscribe to a particular plan, and the reasons why the telco's offer those plans for a given price.
Along now comes the Minnesota AG and apparently some customers who want to turn contract law into a one sided thing for the benefit of only one party by saying now it's ok for a customer to come along and change what might be the most significant part of that agreement at any time and to suffer no consequences for it.
Verizon, sprint and others on the other hand, now would have to accept a lower price per minute possibly than they otherwise would, and keep that in effect until the end of the original agreement.
This to me would seem similar to a landlord who rents out space to a tenant for a 3 year lease, the tenant decides 6 mos. later his business isn't doing very well..decides he wants half the space instead..and the landlord is then forced to simply accept that for the remainder of the lease.
Simply put, that pretty much vacates the whole reason for ever having negotiated this in the first place..and offers the landlord no protection except that the person will be there in SOME form or the other.
Sprint..should have fought this on a contract law basis.
And Verizon was wrong to cave in without a fight.
Fair..after all..is fair. And there's more potential damage in setting these kinds of strange precedents.
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The Coyote captured the RR! Roadrunner Rick is now Comcastic! |
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Cogdis
join:2007-03-26
Floral Park, NY | The problem is they just do it without telling you.
I upgraded from $30 plan to a $50 plan not thinking anything of it. I didn't find out until 6 months later that not only was my contract extended, but my ETF went up from $150 to $200.
Contracts are worth something- like a discount on a phone. It was wrong of them to sneak that in there just because I get a more expensive plan. |
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Ahrenl
join:2004-10-26
North Andover, MA | reply to Rick
Your analogy stinks. (as most do)
To make it correct, the tennant would only be using half the space, and the landlord would have the ability to dynamically lease the unused space unless the tenant wanted to use it. There would also be minimums on how little space the tenant could pay for, even if they aren't using it.
While I think it should be up to Sprint if they want to let you pay for less minutes, it's certainly in their best interest to let you ammend the contract to pay for more.
Of course the whole point of the contract is to cover the phone subsidy. Since every contract size gets the same subsidy (by length) then, you can argue, Sprint loses nothing, since the contract size doesn't effect the benefit the customer receives. |
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| reply to Rick
Bad analogy.
You buy the phone for the same price no matter what price plan you get. From the most expensive all inclusive plans down to the lowest per month plans, the phone still costs the same. The ONLY difference in price is with 1 or 2 year contracts.
So if the plan changes, the phone would have still cost the same and the cell phone companies still get a monthly payment. Notice, they did this whether you degraded or upgraded your plan. Under your reasoning, they should get a bigger discount for people upgrading their plans since the cell phone companies would get more money per month.
Thank you, drive through. |
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1 edit | reply to Rick
You're an idiot. As previously stated, it's a crappy analogy. And how about the fact that they are extending plans without telling people? You "free market fixes everything" people are about as retarded as they get. |
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fiberguyMy views are my own.Premium
join:2005-05-20
kudos:3
1 edit | reply to Rick
said by Rick:If a person negotiates a contract the terms of it should be adhered to on both sides. And, in these types of contracts the number of minutes and price per minute is a key point of those agreements. There is your problem. This happened to me with Sprint/Nextel, and they wanted to up my contract.. they only told me this AS WE WERE ENDING THE CALL.
Please, tell me, when was anything negotiated?
In fairness, you are correct. When two sides negotiate. This is not a negotiation, rather, this is a policy. Policy and a negotiated contract are two different things.
They got caught with their hands in the cookie jar and now they are getting slapped.
On the other hand, the telephone industry has been regulated for years. This is a good reason to regulate them again. You should NEVER be forced to extend a contract to add minutes or change a plan. (Unless you want to change to a non-qualifying plan that was already agreed to)
Extortion comes to mind in this case. It would be something like this:
customer: "I would like to increase my minutes per month from 400 to 800 because I'm going to use more"..
them: "ok, but I see you have 4 months left, you must re-up a 2 year agreement to do so"..
customer: "I don't want a new contract"
them: "then pay the .40 cents overage.
me: "would you like the $200 ETF now on my credit card? or you just going to bill me. Because your ETF doesn't scare me. You can have the ETF but you will lose the monthly billing.. I'm going to a company that doesn't try extortion.
The ETF fee NEVER scares me. I could have paid the extra up front or on the back side, should I need it. It's a gamble and one that I'm willing to take. Sadly more people don't exercise the ETF and pay it.
On another note. I purchased my own phone on a previous contract.. it expired. (It was on a plan with a business partner and the contract was fulfilled) I took that same phone, to the same carrier, opened up a new line of service, and Nextel told me I had to agree to a 2 year contract with them simply to activate the service.. WTF?! They gave me no phone, they gave me NO promotion, but to simply sign up with them, it was a 24 month commit?
The law suit was LONG over due. These companies can't simply compete and sell their service.. they have to rope their customers in.. it's the only way.
Today, people still bag on Cable TV all the time, but be thankful that they don't require contracts on their service. Even landlines are making it a requirement when you take any promotion these days. SIMPLY WRONG! Contracts are a sign of a poor product.
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"Complaining is the least path of resistance for the self-serving, the lazy, and I’m told it’s a woman’s prerogative..." |
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 rosco35Premium
join:2003-11-10
USA
kudos:1 | reply to Rick
No, while the customer would be paying less per minute if increasing their plan, they would also be paying more money every month. so vz then makes more money. |
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