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Here we go again with another class-action lawsuit seeking to recover illegally levied Early Termination Fees (ETF) from wireless carriers. Sprint, still reeling from a previous court order that had the struggling US wireless carrier refunding some $73 million to ex-customers that were charged ETF fees, has been hit with another federal class-action lawsuit in the same vein.
The previous ruling only provided ETF refunds to subscribers that terminated contracts on or before March 17, 2007. This new lawsuit seeks refunds for subscribers for subscribers that were assessed an ETF as far back as 1999.
The No. 3 wireless carrier was slapped with the lawsuit just prior to the company’s announcement of an overhauled ETF system that would have customer paying prorated fees based on the length of time remaining on their wireless contract. This latest class-action alleges that Sprint Nextel illegally charged $1.2 billion in ETF fees since 1999.
“After a full trial on the merits, we proved that Sprint Nextel’s termination fees violated California law,” said Scott Bursor, lead trial lawyer for the plaintiffs. “We proved that the fees bear no relation to any cost incurred by the company. And we proved that the fees were established as an arbitrary penalty to prevent dissatisfied customers from leaving. Now we will prove that the fees violate federal law as well.”
[Via: RCR]
About The Author
Will Park
Will hails from The City of Angels - Los Angeles, California. He spends his time playing with his numerous gadgets and looking forward to seeing what future holds for mobile technology. An avid promoter of a fully "digital" life, he promotes the widespread adoption of truly mobile, paper-less living. He dreams of the day when he can go completely digital. No more snail mail, paper receipts, bound books, notepads/spiral notebooks, credit cards, hard currency. He's a digital warrior - fighting for the converged life. He is an idealist and a realist - he has a perfect view of what the world should be but knows that the world is not perfect. Can we ever hope to see Will's dream become reality? We'll see...
