Posted on 03/18/2012 11:05:23 AM PDT by Dallas59
AT&T decided to pay up after a California small claims court judge ruled it was unfair to throttle a cellphone data plan advertised as unlimited.
Matt Spaccarelli, 39, challenged AT&T in February after he noticed his 4G network wasn’t operating as fast as it should. Spaccarelli is among the 5% of AT&T customers who use the most data. He told the court speeds slowed once he used 1.5GB to 2GB of data after the billing cycle began.
The judge said slowing down data violated AT&T’s unlimited data plan terms and ordered AT&T pay $850 plus $85 for court costs.
(Excerpt) Read more at mashable.com ...
I thought small claims was for under $100.00
No, that amount represents less than one hour of time from the legal beagles who would work on the appeal.
Small claims is for <$7,500.
“Thank you for calling ASAP, er... AT&T U-Verse. This is Debbie. How may I provide you with excellent service today?”
I think he was referring to the third-party “extra charges” found on ATT bills. I have ATT, and the phone bill is like looking at GoDaddy’s bill. A bunch of techie mumbo jumbo that even includes taxes for an extra Fed charge that basically gives away free phones to the poor.
Contracts for AT&T wireless compel arbitration. If they paid this claim, it was because doing so was cheap. They will vigorously defend their right to throttle data agreements - using the contract language - if it really matters.
I argued this one with AT&T and finally just switched to a 5 gig limited plan. My plan costs went from $60 to $45, and I paid the $20, not losing much on the netted basis. Getting out entirely would have cost hundreds of $ more....
Guess I lucked out, keeping my unlimited plan. Costs me $30/month. My wife was after me to drop it and go with the cheaper limited plan, but I said just watch and they'll hike prices for that limited plan. And they did. I'm paying now same amount that others pay for limited but get unlimited. Had to stop at an AT&T store recently and the workers were drooling and told me by all means to hang onto it.
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