10 ms·

Customer takes Bell to court and wins

125 points by xkcd-sucks 9y ago

lechiffre10 9y ago
All crooks. As a Canadian, it's a shame that so many choose to just accept circumstances regarding Telecoms and other companies. We get royally screwed and no one seems to care. I'm so glad I decided to cut my contract with my phone company two years ago.
- jordigh 9y ago
  > We get royally screwed Well, only in Saskatchewan, I think. I'm not sure if there are other telecom crown corporations that can give you a regal treatment. I don't think Bell was ever a crown corp, but parts of it may have been before they bought them.
- UseStrict 9y ago
  And the big 3 keep pushing. All pushing up fees for internet, cable, etc in lockstep. Lying on contracts, using misleading advertising for initial terms, not following guidelines or laws. None of them offering truly competitive rates. The agencies that are meant to handle complaints and regulations do so half-heartedly. It's bad when my phone bill dominates my monthly expenses, second only to rent.
  - wolco 9y ago
    ooma phone/product might be perfect for you. $4.00 a month and you buy the device. Most features included.
- chrischen 9y ago
  I was dumbfounded when Canadians told me not only they were still paying for a thing called "long distance", but their cell phones charged for out-of-province calls!
sshanky 9y ago
I wonder (not really) how this would go down in the US.
- toss1 9y ago
  Could actually go pretty well, especially if picked up as a class action by a law firm expert in that area. It is exactly the kind of systemic unfairness that the class actions are designed to handle -- too small individually to typically prosecute, but enormous in aggregate. That said, legislation constraining class actions and terms requiring arbitration, etc. are setup as obstacles, and could be effective roadblocks. However since this was a deal before the contract with the fine print demanding arbitration, it might work (std IANAL caveat)
- mnort 9y ago
  I’m curious about american jurisprudence in this area. In the US I generally have good luck with “pushing back” on corporations after having made verbal agreements with customer service, but not always.
- btilly 9y ago
  Possibly the same way. Both countries have the same common law traditions. But I'm surprised that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds did not come into play. This was a well-documented verbal contract, but still it was a verbal contract for 24 months. Which is more than a year, and therefore is more than a verbal contract should be able to cover.
  - ballenf 9y ago
    That is why the comment that it would be memorialized in writing was important to the case. The idea being that the writing was enough confirmation of the existence of the verbal contract, irregardless that it contradicted a key point. The key point (no price increases) was confirmed to be part of the verbal contract by the transcript. In essence you have satisfied SOF by the email and satisfied meeting of the minds on key contractual points (term, price, level of service) through the transcript.
TallGuyShort 9y ago
>> In a move that was pivotal to his legal case, he requested a transcript of the call I take advantage of the fact that the companies who seem to be the most frustrating to deal with, are courteous enough to begin each phone call stating that "calls may be recorded." I have a call recording app on my phone and on at least 3 occasions I have had a company immediately escalate a phone call to a person who immediately fixed the problem when I offered to replay a previous phone call back to them. That app probably has the highest value-to-cost ratio of any app on my phone. edit: I should add that depending on the state, you may be allowed to record simply by virtue of the fact that you are a party to the conversation. Some states do require consent from all parties and how this applies across state lines is poorly defined. That's why I like it when companies tell me they're recording - then I have a green light. Funnily, Verizon once called me, told me they were recording, and then hung up when I said I was too.
- deepsun 9y ago
  What app is that? I've found that none of Play Store apps can record the other party, only my own voice.
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    Mine is called "Call Recorder - ACR" on Google Play. I've had that same problem before - the Android permissions relevant to this type of app have changed through various versions and on different phones - there's a different combination of settings you need depending on your device - they have a help page about it that I had to play around with before I got it to work again after an upgrade. edit: If you have a good poker face it may not matter - I've had a company push back a little further but eventually cave before I actually sent them the MP3, but only once has anyone actually heard any of the recording before they changed their tune.
    - wkearney99 9y ago
      Got a link to that particular app? Name games on the play store make it worth following a known-good link instead of just searching for text...
olliej 9y ago
It sounds like I’m this case the sales person said an incorrect price (either on accident or deliberate sales person scummy behavior), so this does seem completely reasonable and good? The alternative seems worse
- ihsw2 9y ago
  The sales person over-promised in order to land the sale and Bell tried to retroactively modify the terms of the contract (pricing). Hopefully this causes CSRs to cut that shit out and be more upfront about pricing. It's nothing but ugly and slimy bullshit.
- mcherm 9y ago
  The law is fairly smart. It is flexible enough to recognize the difference between a simple clerical error or misstatement and an intentional deception. In this case, OP provides plenty of evidence that this would be a case of intentional deception. Contract law as implemented in most US states says that clerical errors are presumed to be correctable while intentional deception may either invalidate the contract or allow it to be enforced as originally stated.
tacon 9y ago
After referring to the "verbal" contract for most of the article, it finally gets to the "oral" contract. All contracts are verbal; some are oral. Only a few contracts must be written, such as those under the "statute of frauds", e.g. real estate contracts.
- ballenf 9y ago
  Even when falling under SOF, the entire contract need not be in writing. Only confirmation of the existence of the contract need be in writing provided that the verbally agreed terms can be verified (here through the transcript). For practical purposes, the entire contract usually is in writing.
rdiddly 9y ago
"Before they got to court, Bell offered Ramsay money to drop the case — $300, roughly the amount Ramsay estimated the telecom would be over-billing him for two years. He declined." HA! "Three weeks before the court date, Bell contacted Ramsay again. He was offered $1,000 to settle, but was required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Again, Ramsay declined." <sarc>Wow, big spenders! They'll spare no expense! They'll stop at nothing! Would they have gone as high as $1,010? $1,050?!?!</sarc> It's almost insulting. Good for this guy. If anyone wants to buy the abridgement of your free speech I hope you'll at least demand appropriate compensation. And I hope if anyone approaches me with that kind of offer, they'll at least have the courtesy not to insult me.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago
  > They'll stop at nothing! Would they have gone as high as $1,010? $1,050?!?!</sarc> The judgment against them was $1,110; how high do you think they should have gone with the settlement offer?
  - mcherm 9y ago
    Well, if they'd gone high enough, neither you nor I would be sitting here right now reading this piece of negative publicity about Bell.
  - btilly 9y ago
    Given that they are now going to face a class action lawsuit and hundreds more of these, $30,000 would have been cheap for his silence. The question isn't what he has to gain, it is what they stood to lose.
    - rarec 9y ago
      In most cases, they have very little. I may hate Comcast, but if I have the misfortune of moving into a place and they're the only game in town, it's basically tough luck. Could rant and rave all day about how terrible everything is, but I have to have internet for work either way.
  - 9y ago
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
veesahni 9y ago
For what it's worth, when chatting with rogers (the other major canadian telecom provider) today about plan change, they explicitly stated their offer guarantees a "discount for the term" but the "rate is not protected" ..
NoB4Mouth 9y ago
A tip for fellow Americans here on HN. What are you waiting for to take FB to court over Cambridge Analytica scandal? Believe it will be more successful than that Show Zuck and Congressmen made last time... Remember some of the Congressmen may surely be on "his" payroll via Mme Sandberg political lobbying endeavors...
vivekd 9y ago
As a Canadian it makes me elated to see one of our big broadcasting oligopolies take a hit. What caught my eye was : >Undeterred, Ramsay filed a complaint with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (the CCTS), a moderator between customers and telecom providers. >In a lengthy email exchange, a spokesperson for the CCTS insisted that Bell had the right to increase prices and since the telecom had notified Ramsay of this fact — as well as an upcoming price increase — it ruled that the telecom provider met its obligations and no further investigation was warranted. CCTS is a part of hte CRTC here in Canada which is a government institution that's supposed to regulate broadcasting and telecom in order to protect Canadian customers. In recent years, they've helped broadcasters fix prices by having them meet and agree on base prices. They've also made prices more expensive for Canadians by working to keep out foreign competition and limit internal competition. In the one instance where it was asked to actually protect a customer against clearly illegal behavior - they didn't seem to care at all, demonstrating that the CTRC is a taxpayer funded entity here to help the telecom giants and not the taxpayers who fund them.
walrus01 9y ago
Tip for Canadian consumers: ALL OF CANADA is a one party consent jurisdiction for phone and conversation recording. Not like the US where law varies state by state. If you run your own VoIP system or otherwise set up call recording on your own phone, you are fine to record and store whatever you want without informing the other party.
throwaway613834 9y ago
Does anyone know what obligation the company has to provide the transcript?

125 points by xkcd-sucks 9y ago

All crooks. As a Canadian, it's a shame that so many choose to just accept circumstances regarding Telecoms and other companies. We get royally screwed and no one seems to care. I'm so glad I decided to cut my contract with my phone company two years ago.

jordigh 9y ago
> We get royally screwed Well, only in Saskatchewan, I think. I'm not sure if there are other telecom crown corporations that can give you a regal treatment. I don't think Bell was ever a crown corp, but parts of it may have been before they bought them.
UseStrict 9y ago
And the big 3 keep pushing. All pushing up fees for internet, cable, etc in lockstep. Lying on contracts, using misleading advertising for initial terms, not following guidelines or laws. None of them offering truly competitive rates. The agencies that are meant to handle complaints and regulations do so half-heartedly. It's bad when my phone bill dominates my monthly expenses, second only to rent.
- wolco 9y ago
  ooma phone/product might be perfect for you. $4.00 a month and you buy the device. Most features included.
chrischen 9y ago
I was dumbfounded when Canadians told me not only they were still paying for a thing called "long distance", but their cell phones charged for out-of-province calls!

sshanky 9y ago

I wonder (not really) how this would go down in the US.

toss1 9y ago
Could actually go pretty well, especially if picked up as a class action by a law firm expert in that area. It is exactly the kind of systemic unfairness that the class actions are designed to handle -- too small individually to typically prosecute, but enormous in aggregate. That said, legislation constraining class actions and terms requiring arbitration, etc. are setup as obstacles, and could be effective roadblocks. However since this was a deal before the contract with the fine print demanding arbitration, it might work (std IANAL caveat)
mnort 9y ago
I’m curious about american jurisprudence in this area. In the US I generally have good luck with “pushing back” on corporations after having made verbal agreements with customer service, but not always.
btilly 9y ago
Possibly the same way. Both countries have the same common law traditions. But I'm surprised that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_frauds did not come into play. This was a well-documented verbal contract, but still it was a verbal contract for 24 months. Which is more than a year, and therefore is more than a verbal contract should be able to cover.
- ballenf 9y ago
  That is why the comment that it would be memorialized in writing was important to the case. The idea being that the writing was enough confirmation of the existence of the verbal contract, irregardless that it contradicted a key point. The key point (no price increases) was confirmed to be part of the verbal contract by the transcript. In essence you have satisfied SOF by the email and satisfied meeting of the minds on key contractual points (term, price, level of service) through the transcript.

TallGuyShort 9y ago

>> In a move that was pivotal to his legal case, he requested a transcript of the call I take advantage of the fact that the companies who seem to be the most frustrating to deal with, are courteous enough to begin each phone call stating that "calls may be recorded." I have a call recording app on my phone and on at least 3 occasions I have had a company immediately escalate a phone call to a person who immediately fixed the problem when I offered to replay a previous phone call back to them. That app probably has the highest value-to-cost ratio of any app on my phone. edit: I should add that depending on the state, you may be allowed to record simply by virtue of the fact that you are a party to the conversation. Some states do require consent from all parties and how this applies across state lines is poorly defined. That's why I like it when companies tell me they're recording - then I have a green light. Funnily, Verizon once called me, told me they were recording, and then hung up when I said I was too.

deepsun 9y ago
What app is that? I've found that none of Play Store apps can record the other party, only my own voice.
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  Mine is called "Call Recorder - ACR" on Google Play. I've had that same problem before - the Android permissions relevant to this type of app have changed through various versions and on different phones - there's a different combination of settings you need depending on your device - they have a help page about it that I had to play around with before I got it to work again after an upgrade. edit: If you have a good poker face it may not matter - I've had a company push back a little further but eventually cave before I actually sent them the MP3, but only once has anyone actually heard any of the recording before they changed their tune.
  - wkearney99 9y ago
    Got a link to that particular app? Name games on the play store make it worth following a known-good link instead of just searching for text...

olliej 9y ago

It sounds like I’m this case the sales person said an incorrect price (either on accident or deliberate sales person scummy behavior), so this does seem completely reasonable and good? The alternative seems worse

ihsw2 9y ago
The sales person over-promised in order to land the sale and Bell tried to retroactively modify the terms of the contract (pricing). Hopefully this causes CSRs to cut that shit out and be more upfront about pricing. It's nothing but ugly and slimy bullshit.
mcherm 9y ago
The law is fairly smart. It is flexible enough to recognize the difference between a simple clerical error or misstatement and an intentional deception. In this case, OP provides plenty of evidence that this would be a case of intentional deception. Contract law as implemented in most US states says that clerical errors are presumed to be correctable while intentional deception may either invalidate the contract or allow it to be enforced as originally stated.

tacon 9y ago

After referring to the "verbal" contract for most of the article, it finally gets to the "oral" contract. All contracts are verbal; some are oral. Only a few contracts must be written, such as those under the "statute of frauds", e.g. real estate contracts.

ballenf 9y ago
Even when falling under SOF, the entire contract need not be in writing. Only confirmation of the existence of the contract need be in writing provided that the verbally agreed terms can be verified (here through the transcript). For practical purposes, the entire contract usually is in writing.

rdiddly 9y ago

"Before they got to court, Bell offered Ramsay money to drop the case — $300, roughly the amount Ramsay estimated the telecom would be over-billing him for two years. He declined." HA! "Three weeks before the court date, Bell contacted Ramsay again. He was offered $1,000 to settle, but was required to sign a confidentiality agreement. Again, Ramsay declined." <sarc>Wow, big spenders! They'll spare no expense! They'll stop at nothing! Would they have gone as high as $1,010? $1,050?!?!</sarc> It's almost insulting. Good for this guy. If anyone wants to buy the abridgement of your free speech I hope you'll at least demand appropriate compensation. And I hope if anyone approaches me with that kind of offer, they'll at least have the courtesy not to insult me.

thaumasiotes 9y ago
> They'll stop at nothing! Would they have gone as high as $1,010? $1,050?!?!</sarc> The judgment against them was $1,110; how high do you think they should have gone with the settlement offer?
- mcherm 9y ago
  Well, if they'd gone high enough, neither you nor I would be sitting here right now reading this piece of negative publicity about Bell.
- btilly 9y ago
  Given that they are now going to face a class action lawsuit and hundreds more of these, $30,000 would have been cheap for his silence. The question isn't what he has to gain, it is what they stood to lose.
  - rarec 9y ago
    In most cases, they have very little. I may hate Comcast, but if I have the misfortune of moving into a place and they're the only game in town, it's basically tough luck. Could rant and rave all day about how terrible everything is, but I have to have internet for work either way.
- 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

veesahni 9y ago

For what it's worth, when chatting with rogers (the other major canadian telecom provider) today about plan change, they explicitly stated their offer guarantees a "discount for the term" but the "rate is not protected" ..

NoB4Mouth 9y ago

A tip for fellow Americans here on HN. What are you waiting for to take FB to court over Cambridge Analytica scandal? Believe it will be more successful than that Show Zuck and Congressmen made last time... Remember some of the Congressmen may surely be on "his" payroll via Mme Sandberg political lobbying endeavors...

vivekd 9y ago

As a Canadian it makes me elated to see one of our big broadcasting oligopolies take a hit. What caught my eye was : >Undeterred, Ramsay filed a complaint with the Commission for Complaints for Telecom-television Services (the CCTS), a moderator between customers and telecom providers. >In a lengthy email exchange, a spokesperson for the CCTS insisted that Bell had the right to increase prices and since the telecom had notified Ramsay of this fact — as well as an upcoming price increase — it ruled that the telecom provider met its obligations and no further investigation was warranted. CCTS is a part of hte CRTC here in Canada which is a government institution that's supposed to regulate broadcasting and telecom in order to protect Canadian customers. In recent years, they've helped broadcasters fix prices by having them meet and agree on base prices. They've also made prices more expensive for Canadians by working to keep out foreign competition and limit internal competition. In the one instance where it was asked to actually protect a customer against clearly illegal behavior - they didn't seem to care at all, demonstrating that the CTRC is a taxpayer funded entity here to help the telecom giants and not the taxpayers who fund them.

walrus01 9y ago

Tip for Canadian consumers: ALL OF CANADA is a one party consent jurisdiction for phone and conversation recording. Not like the US where law varies state by state. If you run your own VoIP system or otherwise set up call recording on your own phone, you are fine to record and store whatever you want without informing the other party.

throwaway613834 9y ago

Does anyone know what obligation the company has to provide the transcript?