Memo to U.S. Cellular
Rule 1: Don’t steal screw up.
Rule 2: If you must steal screw up, don’t steal attempt to collect your erroneous fees from a lawyer with a blog.
UPDATE: Wizbang Paul, Artitumis, ISOU, Murdoc, Jed and Max Power have more.
UPDATE x2: Thanks to Patterico for the link I meant to post originally. Ich bin ein Dummkopf.
UPDATE x3: More from the Dummkopf Department – I originally gave Artitumis the Xlrq treatment, misspelling his name “Artitumus.” It’s fixed now, I think.
UPDATE x4: More on the legalities of the issue here.
UPDATE x5: Powerline, which has rightly been named Blog of the Year by Time Magazine, offers a completely unrelated reason to use Sprint rather than U.S. Cellular.
FINAL UPDATE: Spoons just informed us that U.S. Cellular has acknowledged that their illegal fee was in error, and dropped it from his bill. Comments to this post are now closed, but I will still accept comments to the follow-up post, which discusses legal vs. illegal contracts more generally.
December 19th, 2004 at 6:41 am
Should we ask what they stole?
December 19th, 2004 at 8:17 am
Click on the link. That’s how these here blogs work.
December 19th, 2004 at 8:30 am
Actually, it’s a fair question — having followed my smart-ass advice and learned that the link is not what I thought it was. Sorry for the misplaced sarcasm.
Try this:
http://www.thespoonsexperience.com/archives/003441.php#003441
December 19th, 2004 at 9:13 am
US Cellular problems at Spoons
Need your help/opinion re: commercial dispute Spoons is having trouble with an early termination fee at US Cellular. Though it sounds from his telling that he’s certainly fulfilled the spirit of the contract, I’m not so sure about the letter….
December 19th, 2004 at 9:35 am
WT & Patterico: D’oh! The links have been fixed. As to the substantive question, thus far they haven’t successfully stolen anything. They are currently attempting to steal $150, which they call a “termination” fee, for a service Spoons didn’t terminate, relying instead on a deliberately vague concept of “inactive” that is neither material to the contract nor adequately defined. Their legitimate interest under the original contract is to be paid, not to prevent him from using anyone else’s services at the same time, and certainly not to prevent him from porting his number to another provider (bear in mind that number portability did not exist in 2002, was not expected anytime soon, and almost certainly was not addressed in the contract). And to top it all off, they’re charging this “fee” under circumstances where it clearly amounts to an unlawful penalty, not a reasonable estimate of liquidated damages. If Spoons had tried to get out of his contract, their damages would have been the amount left on the contract, not $150. Since he didn’t try to get out of anything, their damages are zero, unless you count the damages to their reputation that their assholery is certain to cause.
December 19th, 2004 at 10:40 am
Well, it is spelled artitumIs but that is no big deal. The link works and I have a new blog to look over! Lets see what I think about you. :mrgreen:
December 20th, 2004 at 10:17 am
That link fest I promised you earlier
Today’s theme: Rats of all sorts….