Travel Blog: Jive Turkey

Travel Blog: Jive Turkey

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Cell Phone Justice

In the fall of 2005, I changed my cell phone service from T-Mobile to Verizon Wireless because the latter has much better coverage in the U.S. T-Mobile is great for calling home from Heathrow, but for calling home from Kittery, ME? Not so much. As a result, T-Mobile charged me a $200 flat-rate early termination fee, and I've been "in a fight with them" ever since.

What was not clear to me when I changed my service was that I was three months into a new two-year contract - a contract that had been renewed most sneakily when I'd taken advantage of my new-every-two phone upgrade the previous July. I'd thought I'd just gotten a new phone. But no, I had renewed the contract, a fact that was lost on and not made clear to me at the time. My fault for not reading the fine print, for sure, but their fault for only putting it in fine print. (By contrast, when I upgraded my Verizon phone last month, they could not have made it more obvious that I was entering into another two-year contract - a marked change, not unique to Verizon, from three and a half years ago.)

But in 2005, when the poor, verbally-abused T-Mobile customer service rep. told me there was nothing I or he could do about the $200 bill, I did what I always do when I feel I've been wronged as a consumer: I called the Mass. Attorney General's Office Consumer Help Line. I
gave them my name, and admitted I was an idiot. But I also added that I felt I'd been deceived and that if I, who am always on top of my finances, could be duped like this, then it was probably happening to other people as well.

What I didn't know at the time was that my name was added to a class action lawsuit. I got the postcard in the mail the other day informing that the case has been settled and there's a good chance I could get up to $125 by fall.

Here are the lessons:

1) Speak up.
2) Speak up even if you partly to blame.
3) Know that your speaking up could help someone else, even if it's
too late to help you.
4) Only complain to people who can actually help you. T-Mobile
customer service rep.? No. Attorney General Martha Coakley? Yes.
5) Enjoy up to $125 worth of justice.