Earthlink DSL → Re: Earthlink charging a Network Access fee for phone service

First of all, that particular underlined sentence should be expunged if the contract is to in any way look like a real "contract". Because otherwise one is really signing for an unknown amount in the time period of the contract! Sure, I signed up and now have to pay the extra $5, but I was not charged until this month, right after my contract was up. It was coincidence I guess.

The bottom line is that while you are forced to possibly pay an ever increasing amount during your contract period, you have no recourse other than to pay it. If I would have read the contract carefully I may not have signed up. It is a bullshit part of it, and gives them the kind of freedom that is denied to you in the same deal. You cannot break the contract for this or anything else just about. If you say that you do not want to pay the increased amount during the contract period, they will not let you out of your contract without penalty. I am not arguing the words in the contract here. Just the fairness and justice of it.

They did this to the DSL users in 2001/2 by taking the monthly price from $39.95 (that was advertised as a lifetime price on ads and postcards in 2000) up to a new level of $49.95 and it hit people in and out of contracts. Then a year or more later they dropped the price back down to $39.95, but you had to know to call in to Customer Service in order to get it fixed on your account...

»RATE CHANGE!?!?!?

»Hello, my Mindspring contract is about to run out

»Advise please!!

Regards,

Doctor Olds

Down here the contract would be tossed I know I lost once that way. In order to be enforceable the contract must either specify a limit on any rate adjustments per year/term ($ or %) and or have an opt-out clause. It is not legal to bind someone into an open ended agreement where rates can be modified beyond a pre-agreed to amount.

Wayne

Credit card companies change rates this way anytime anywhere.