Frontier Imposes Owned Modem Fee

i agree, very poor legal decision to call this a "warranty" too. there is tons and tons of case law about warranties. they should have called it something cryptic and ambiguous like "Government modem technical response fund" or something...

USF! Any other questions?

So what we're REALLY arguing here is BILL SIMPLICITY.

So instead, theyll raise all DSL prices. Who CARES. Isnt the bottom line monthly price whats important?. If your monthly overall charges are too much, shop around for another provider and compare THEIR overall charges.

This is no different than the DirecTV "mirroring fee" that I remember paying when I hooked up my own STB's.

So what we're REALLY arguing here is BILL SIMPLICITY.

Frontier, do yourselves a favor, scrap this idea and raise all your DSL prices $7 a month. As you can see, people dont like bill increases in this manner. lol

What amazes me is the constant barrage of offers from banks that offer 0% interest for 12 months on balance transfers. It looks like free money but the fine print contains a balance transfer fee -- often something like 3%. Fees are immediate. 3% expressed as a 12-month APR is ~5.5%. Suddenly what was free money costs ~5.5% and if you don't pay it off in 12 months, it gets even worse -- especially if the creditor compounds interest at a crazy rate that is magically forgiven only if you pay it off in 12 months. How many people fall for this stuff?

Don't be ridiculous. the sales associate at the counter won't tell you this when you apply for credit. You won't get print with those terms at the store or when your new card arrives in the mail. You will only get them after you receive statement in the mail which has them written in tiny blueprint on the back or pages of the thick booklet without indexes.

I hope you like reading EULA before installing programs or games.

The point of technical writing is to be informative, concise and grab audience (customer) attention. If a cell phone company can do this when signing two year contract about any hidden charges,......

While you may be knowledgeable at the Kmart checkout about the legal meaning of these terms, most retail personnel do not understand them, anymore than their customers.

»www.creditcards.com/cred ··· 1282.php

Thats how I fell in trap with merchant Firestone. When my tire went broke and needed urgent replacement. I couldn't even drive, had to tow it.

What did they do? they pushed me to replace all 4 instead just one, because all of them looked "old." Only later to find out at home, my father replaced them few months ago. Rip-off

Then not having immidiate $600 to spend for replacing tires, not wanting to put on my credit cards, I applied for their firestone CC. It had 0% apr for 6 months.

This makes no sense. Anyone with half a brain can change a tire - mount the spare, and drive home to comparison shop, consult your father, etc.

Keeping it separate allows them to benefit the same way on-line merchants benefit from not disclosing shipping/handling fees and taxes when they send prices to search sites. Often the site with the lowest price isn't after you add S&H and potential sales tax.

Amazon ships items over a certain dollar amount free (Super Saver Shipping). They probably do this by using their volume to normalize fees with shippers. By that I mean they probably get flat-rate pricing and that enables them to build their handling and shipping into their margin (no hidden fees).

The post office offers anyone this with their flat-rate "if it fits, it ships", program. If merchants cannot take advantage of this it's likely because they are lazy and don't want to categorize their merchandise by package size and attempt to build it into their margin.

And this is just postage. Regarding handling, if you don't know your own costs and cannot build them into your margin, well that's just sad.

I'm not buying the "poor merchant" argument with respect to S&H.

Keeping it separate allows them to benefit the same way on-line merchants benefit from not disclosing shipping/handling fees and taxes when they send prices to search sites. Often the site with the lowest price isn't after you add S&H and potential sales tax.

If you work at it you might find out about the modem rental fee but it will be buried in fine print that's so small and displayed so quickly that unless you have a 256hz 50" 1080p flat-panel with a DVR that let's you freeze the commercial, you'll be hard pressed to notice the fine print displayed for 500ms at the end of the 30 second spot:

Taxes and regulatory, franchise, equipment rental, setup and installation fees may apply. Price quoted is for comparison purposes and does not represent a final price.

If the advertised cost of service doesn't include the cost of this fee, then Frontier users should contact their respective state attorney general's office and report blatant false advertising.

I really hope that most Frontier users have another option for broadband. This fee is total crap.

This looks like the desperate move of a company dying a slow death. Hopefully their lawyers will be educated in "class action" soon enough.

I love how companies do everything they can to bend you over anymore.

I can't recall ever seeing a "Frontier makes customers happy" news article on these jokers. Bogus fees left and right, flat out raping Fios customers, lousy customer service. How exactly does Frontier stay in business?

What's even funnier, you can purchase a Bell branded modem at FutureShop or Bestbuy and when you sign up for service, they will rebate you the cost of the modem and start charging the rental fee.

I am curious as to whether this is even legal or if the FCC could step in and do something.

I dont believe its legal. Look at all those companies who charge for an extended auto warranty.

They cant just start charging you and say "your in" regardless of what you want.