5 ms·

Verizon to keep charging controversial fee despite $100M settlement

58 points by kurthr 3y ago

EMCymatics 3y ago
Untouchable.
- gruez 3y ago
  In this case they haven't been convicted of any wrongdoing, nor was there any precedent that what they did was wrong. Given the above, them continuing to do whatever they were doing seems like the justice system working as intended? Obviously many people think they're guilty of something, but in this case it seems like the plaintiff's case was weak rather than verizon being "Untouchable".
  - josefritz 3y ago
    They paid a 100M settlement. Pretty sure that's not a charitable donation.
    - gruez 3y ago
      That makes as much sense as "he agreed to a plea bargain; he must be guilty of something".
      - ok_dad 3y ago
        Why are you defending a billion dollar company? Is Verizon so hard up that they need random people to defend their shit business practices? I don’t get why you’re so invested in this morally reprehensible practice.
        gruez 3y ago
        >Why are you defending a billion dollar company? "Why are you defending an accused rapist/pedophile/murderer?" >Is Verizon so hard up that they need random people to defend their shit business practices? I don’t get why you’re so invested in this morally reprehensible practice. I'm not sure how you got the impression I support "their shit business practices". If you read my comments more carefully you'll see I was only arguing that from both a practical and legal standpoint, they don't have to change their behavior. I did not make any sort of normative claim.
        ok_dad 3y ago
        Technicalities are a bane of a civilized society. We have come so far that it’s acceptable to be dickheads in your business of it’s merely legal to do so. Arguments of “it’s legal” are fine in court but in society we should expect people and companies to behave better than the minimum. Arguments like yours lend credibility to things like this.
        gruez 3y ago
        >Technicalities are [...] Plaintiffs settling is hardly a "technicality".
        danaris 3y ago
        Did Verizon charge deeply misleading fees whose sole purpose is to make it hard to tell how much you'll actually be paying when you sign up for the "$59.99*†‡" plan? Yes, unquestionably. Is this morally reprehensible? Unless your entire notion of "morality" is "what it's possible to get away with legally," yes, unquestionably. Do they plan to continue doing this, despite it being abundantly clear that it's morally reprehensible and legally at least questionable? Yes, that's the entire point of the article. So yes: the plaintiffs settling is absolutely a "technicality" if what you're concerned about is justice, rather than pure legal procedure.
        ok_dad 3y ago
        Thank you, I’m not very good with words and your explanation is way better than mine!
      - wnevets 3y ago
        > "he agreed to a plea bargain; he must be guilty of something". What do you think they would be pleading to?
        lesuorac 3y ago
        To piggy back on this. If you want to not admit guilt but also give up, you can also plea "No Contest" which is typically what you do every time you pay a traffic fine (i.e. Speeding Camera.
        everforward 3y ago
        You might also hear it as nolo contendere (Latin for "I do not wish to contend") or an "Alford plea" (after the first person to use it). I prefer the term "Alford plea" because it is indicative of the common use. Alford was charged with murder and plead guilty because the prosecution was going to seek the death penalty if he didn't. Where an innocent or guilty plea addresses the facts of the case, an Alford plea solely addresses the case itself. Someone who makes an Alford plea is opting not to address factual evidence, but conceding that they believe the jury is likely enough to convict that there is no reason to oppose it. To get on my soapbox for a moment, the existence and prevalence of Alford plea's is an indictment of the US judicial system. It's something people plea when they're innocent, but don't want to risk the enormous penalty the prosecution will seek at trial. Trial sentencing has become tantamount to punishing someone for exercising their constitutional rights to a trial. The prosecution is fine with a slap on the wrist until you want to exercise your right to a trial, and suddenly nothing but a lengthy jail term is appropriate.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      And the cost of the settlement will be recovered with the higher fees.
  - ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
    Could another party replay this case, and they would have to settle again?
    - gruez 3y ago
      The article says that they ended up changing the language in their marketing/contracts, presumably to make it more lawsuit-proof. The plaintiff lawyers also settled, which suggests their case isn't a slam dunk. Given the two factors suing again is probably a very risky proposition.
  - danaris 3y ago
    They "haven't been convicted of any wrongdoing" because we have developed a detestable habit, in this country, of allowing—in some cases even encouraging—large companies and wealthy individuals to simply settle major lawsuits "without admitting any wrongdoing" rather than forcing them to actually, yes, admit that lying and taking money they weren't owed and didn't need (or whatever other particular awful thing a given suit is about) is wrong, and requiring them to change their behavior. All because it would be more expensive to actually see justice carried out. It really makes me wonder just how expensive it would be, in net, to nationalize and/or break up companies like Verizon, and force them to be good corporate citizens either by running them directly, or by cutting them down to a much more manageable size and actually giving them meaningful competition again for the first time in far, far too long.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >They "haven't been convicted of any wrongdoing" because we have developed a detestable habit, in this country, of allowing—in some cases even encouraging—large companies and wealthy individuals to simply settle major lawsuits "without admitting any wrongdoing" rather than forcing them to actually, yes, admit that lying and taking money they weren't owed and didn't need (or whatever other particular awful thing a given suit is about) is wrong, and requiring them to change their behavior. Except in this case it's not really clear that taking them to trial would result in a guilty verdict against them. It's also possible that they get off 100% scot free instead. I don't know about you, but if I was a consumer I'd rather get a paycheck in the mail right now, than having both sides' lawyers rack up thousands more billable hours (which will be paid from the settlement and/or future bills) for an uncertain promise of a bigger paycheck and them being declared as guilty.
      - anigbrowl 3y ago
        Not a Verizon customer, but any regular consumer is only going to be getting $20 or $30, max. If they are guilty, then letting them buy their way out of it without admitting it is BS; if they're not, then letting them be shaken down without being at fault is BS. Reducing everything to expected value and probabilistic calculations means that an ever-increasing volume of commercial and legal decision-making is based on bluff rather than principle.
j-bos 3y ago
One thing that rubs me the wrong but same way about stories like this, certain layoffs, ads in paid subscriptions, the sales of personal data, and shoddy-safe planes falling out of the sky, is the insincerity of it. Verizon is charging a separate hidden fee, supposedly to pay for gov't fees, but it's not a gov't mandated fee. Anyone with eyes open can smell the double talk. It's tiresome to constantly be lied to and need to be guarding against institutional pickpockets.
- eek2121 3y ago
  What ads and what sale of data? Ars does not sell or give away paid subscriber data, and they certainly don't show ads to paid subscribers.
  - danaris 3y ago
    I don't see anywhere in the GP a suggestion that anything in their criticism is directed at Ars Technica...
  - j-bos 3y ago
    Sorry for the lack of clarity. It was a general comment about certain trends I've been noticing and not specific to any one offender in particular. Certainly not Ars, I'm not familiar with them on that level.
- landedgentry 3y ago
  It's exhausting. I wish there were a way to quantify this, because it feels more and more unabashed, egregious, common and normalized.
  - p1mrx 3y ago
    Maybe they'll change course if we throw enough adjectives at them.
kmeisthax 3y ago
In my opinion, advertised prices should always be inclusive of taxes and fees. Anything less is cost obfuscation. It's like the ol' eBay scam of 1 cent items that have the whole cost of the item built into the shipping just to confuse people.
- 6493747485 3y ago
  The argument against this, specifically with regard to taxes, is that baking in the tax conceals the impact of that tax from the consumer. Obviously this primarily applies to sales taxes since production taxes aren't consumer facing (even if they impact consumers) but it's still better imo than simply not having that information since most laws are already fire and forget type affairs and so their costs can compound over time to degrees that aren't as immediately obvious to the public if they aren't displayed frequently and visibly.
  - jjeaff 3y ago
    I agree that taxes need to be applied separately so the public knows how much they are paying in taxes. Also, if you required including the tax, it would not be possible for most sites to advertise any prices without the user creating an account, providing their shipping address and logging in, since tax rates vary by country, county, even municipality.
    - thefurdrake 3y ago
      Please explain in excruciating detail the need for an account to provide a single input box for zip code to just calculate fees? I need a serious breakdown of the logic behind this position, because from where I'm sitting, it seems to me like you could determine someone's "country, county, even municipality" with that single piece of data and no more.
      - toast0 3y ago
        Zip codes aren't specific enough to determine tax rates. Zip codes are assigned by the post office to facilitate delivery of mail, not to determine which taxing districts an address belongs in. You really need the whole address sometimes. Because the city name on the mailing address often indicates the city, but not always. And some taxing districts don't follow city boundaries anyway. And you need a process to handle exceptions, because boundaries are complex and sometimes mistakes are made.
mrandish 3y ago
This judgement only settles overcharges through Nov 8th. If Verizon keeps charging this discretionary undisclosed fee, hopefully enterprising class action lawyers will make suing them for settlements an ongoing business model. Future judgements against the same behavior might also make judges amenable to increasing punitive damages on top of recovery of actual damages. I suspect that might eventually "encourage" Verizon to reevaluate the cost/benefit of continuing this practice.
more_corn 3y ago
Because they make more than $100m by keeping it.
mike503 3y ago
Did they make over $100M from the fees? If so, it's still profit.

58 points by kurthr 3y ago

EMCymatics 3y ago

Untouchable.

gruez 3y ago
In this case they haven't been convicted of any wrongdoing, nor was there any precedent that what they did was wrong. Given the above, them continuing to do whatever they were doing seems like the justice system working as intended? Obviously many people think they're guilty of something, but in this case it seems like the plaintiff's case was weak rather than verizon being "Untouchable".
- josefritz 3y ago
  They paid a 100M settlement. Pretty sure that's not a charitable donation.
  - gruez 3y ago
    That makes as much sense as "he agreed to a plea bargain; he must be guilty of something".
    - ok_dad 3y ago
      Why are you defending a billion dollar company? Is Verizon so hard up that they need random people to defend their shit business practices? I don’t get why you’re so invested in this morally reprehensible practice.
      - gruez 3y ago
        >Why are you defending a billion dollar company? "Why are you defending an accused rapist/pedophile/murderer?" >Is Verizon so hard up that they need random people to defend their shit business practices? I don’t get why you’re so invested in this morally reprehensible practice. I'm not sure how you got the impression I support "their shit business practices". If you read my comments more carefully you'll see I was only arguing that from both a practical and legal standpoint, they don't have to change their behavior. I did not make any sort of normative claim.
        ok_dad 3y ago
        Technicalities are a bane of a civilized society. We have come so far that it’s acceptable to be dickheads in your business of it’s merely legal to do so. Arguments of “it’s legal” are fine in court but in society we should expect people and companies to behave better than the minimum. Arguments like yours lend credibility to things like this.
        gruez 3y ago
        >Technicalities are [...] Plaintiffs settling is hardly a "technicality".
        danaris 3y ago
        Did Verizon charge deeply misleading fees whose sole purpose is to make it hard to tell how much you'll actually be paying when you sign up for the "$59.99*†‡" plan? Yes, unquestionably. Is this morally reprehensible? Unless your entire notion of "morality" is "what it's possible to get away with legally," yes, unquestionably. Do they plan to continue doing this, despite it being abundantly clear that it's morally reprehensible and legally at least questionable? Yes, that's the entire point of the article. So yes: the plaintiffs settling is absolutely a "technicality" if what you're concerned about is justice, rather than pure legal procedure.
        ok_dad 3y ago
        Thank you, I’m not very good with words and your explanation is way better than mine!
    - wnevets 3y ago
      > "he agreed to a plea bargain; he must be guilty of something". What do you think they would be pleading to?
      - lesuorac 3y ago
        To piggy back on this. If you want to not admit guilt but also give up, you can also plea "No Contest" which is typically what you do every time you pay a traffic fine (i.e. Speeding Camera.
        everforward 3y ago
        You might also hear it as nolo contendere (Latin for "I do not wish to contend") or an "Alford plea" (after the first person to use it). I prefer the term "Alford plea" because it is indicative of the common use. Alford was charged with murder and plead guilty because the prosecution was going to seek the death penalty if he didn't. Where an innocent or guilty plea addresses the facts of the case, an Alford plea solely addresses the case itself. Someone who makes an Alford plea is opting not to address factual evidence, but conceding that they believe the jury is likely enough to convict that there is no reason to oppose it. To get on my soapbox for a moment, the existence and prevalence of Alford plea's is an indictment of the US judicial system. It's something people plea when they're innocent, but don't want to risk the enormous penalty the prosecution will seek at trial. Trial sentencing has become tantamount to punishing someone for exercising their constitutional rights to a trial. The prosecution is fine with a slap on the wrist until you want to exercise your right to a trial, and suddenly nothing but a lengthy jail term is appropriate.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    And the cost of the settlement will be recovered with the higher fees.
- ikekkdcjkfke 3y ago
  Could another party replay this case, and they would have to settle again?
  - gruez 3y ago
    The article says that they ended up changing the language in their marketing/contracts, presumably to make it more lawsuit-proof. The plaintiff lawyers also settled, which suggests their case isn't a slam dunk. Given the two factors suing again is probably a very risky proposition.
- danaris 3y ago
  They "haven't been convicted of any wrongdoing" because we have developed a detestable habit, in this country, of allowing—in some cases even encouraging—large companies and wealthy individuals to simply settle major lawsuits "without admitting any wrongdoing" rather than forcing them to actually, yes, admit that lying and taking money they weren't owed and didn't need (or whatever other particular awful thing a given suit is about) is wrong, and requiring them to change their behavior. All because it would be more expensive to actually see justice carried out. It really makes me wonder just how expensive it would be, in net, to nationalize and/or break up companies like Verizon, and force them to be good corporate citizens either by running them directly, or by cutting them down to a much more manageable size and actually giving them meaningful competition again for the first time in far, far too long.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >They "haven't been convicted of any wrongdoing" because we have developed a detestable habit, in this country, of allowing—in some cases even encouraging—large companies and wealthy individuals to simply settle major lawsuits "without admitting any wrongdoing" rather than forcing them to actually, yes, admit that lying and taking money they weren't owed and didn't need (or whatever other particular awful thing a given suit is about) is wrong, and requiring them to change their behavior. Except in this case it's not really clear that taking them to trial would result in a guilty verdict against them. It's also possible that they get off 100% scot free instead. I don't know about you, but if I was a consumer I'd rather get a paycheck in the mail right now, than having both sides' lawyers rack up thousands more billable hours (which will be paid from the settlement and/or future bills) for an uncertain promise of a bigger paycheck and them being declared as guilty.
    - anigbrowl 3y ago
      Not a Verizon customer, but any regular consumer is only going to be getting $20 or $30, max. If they are guilty, then letting them buy their way out of it without admitting it is BS; if they're not, then letting them be shaken down without being at fault is BS. Reducing everything to expected value and probabilistic calculations means that an ever-increasing volume of commercial and legal decision-making is based on bluff rather than principle.

j-bos 3y ago

One thing that rubs me the wrong but same way about stories like this, certain layoffs, ads in paid subscriptions, the sales of personal data, and shoddy-safe planes falling out of the sky, is the insincerity of it. Verizon is charging a separate hidden fee, supposedly to pay for gov't fees, but it's not a gov't mandated fee. Anyone with eyes open can smell the double talk. It's tiresome to constantly be lied to and need to be guarding against institutional pickpockets.

eek2121 3y ago
What ads and what sale of data? Ars does not sell or give away paid subscriber data, and they certainly don't show ads to paid subscribers.
- danaris 3y ago
  I don't see anywhere in the GP a suggestion that anything in their criticism is directed at Ars Technica...
- j-bos 3y ago
  Sorry for the lack of clarity. It was a general comment about certain trends I've been noticing and not specific to any one offender in particular. Certainly not Ars, I'm not familiar with them on that level.
landedgentry 3y ago
It's exhausting. I wish there were a way to quantify this, because it feels more and more unabashed, egregious, common and normalized.
- p1mrx 3y ago
  Maybe they'll change course if we throw enough adjectives at them.

kmeisthax 3y ago

In my opinion, advertised prices should always be inclusive of taxes and fees. Anything less is cost obfuscation. It's like the ol' eBay scam of 1 cent items that have the whole cost of the item built into the shipping just to confuse people.

6493747485 3y ago
The argument against this, specifically with regard to taxes, is that baking in the tax conceals the impact of that tax from the consumer. Obviously this primarily applies to sales taxes since production taxes aren't consumer facing (even if they impact consumers) but it's still better imo than simply not having that information since most laws are already fire and forget type affairs and so their costs can compound over time to degrees that aren't as immediately obvious to the public if they aren't displayed frequently and visibly.
- jjeaff 3y ago
  I agree that taxes need to be applied separately so the public knows how much they are paying in taxes. Also, if you required including the tax, it would not be possible for most sites to advertise any prices without the user creating an account, providing their shipping address and logging in, since tax rates vary by country, county, even municipality.
  - thefurdrake 3y ago
    Please explain in excruciating detail the need for an account to provide a single input box for zip code to just calculate fees? I need a serious breakdown of the logic behind this position, because from where I'm sitting, it seems to me like you could determine someone's "country, county, even municipality" with that single piece of data and no more.
    - toast0 3y ago
      Zip codes aren't specific enough to determine tax rates. Zip codes are assigned by the post office to facilitate delivery of mail, not to determine which taxing districts an address belongs in. You really need the whole address sometimes. Because the city name on the mailing address often indicates the city, but not always. And some taxing districts don't follow city boundaries anyway. And you need a process to handle exceptions, because boundaries are complex and sometimes mistakes are made.

mrandish 3y ago

This judgement only settles overcharges through Nov 8th. If Verizon keeps charging this discretionary undisclosed fee, hopefully enterprising class action lawyers will make suing them for settlements an ongoing business model. Future judgements against the same behavior might also make judges amenable to increasing punitive damages on top of recovery of actual damages. I suspect that might eventually "encourage" Verizon to reevaluate the cost/benefit of continuing this practice.

more_corn 3y ago

Because they make more than $100m by keeping it.

mike503 3y ago

Did they make over $100M from the fees? If so, it's still profit.