Significant court win

[MariaLoranger]

I hope this will make Public Mobile think twice about raising the price for customers on the Fall 2016 promotion plan:  http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bell-customer-wins-court-battle-over-contract-1.4635118

Public Mobile has been engaged in furious offers to convince most of these customers to quit this plan by moving to Koodo, so that they could raise prices freely in the new plans. 

They better not try to raise the price of the Fall 2016 promo plan again for the remaining few. 

[srlawren]

While the judge's ruling is somewhat surprising, Bell using dishonest sales practices is not.  Did anyone catch the CBC Marketplace segment on their door to door sales team?  Disgraceful.  

You can view it on YouTube if you are curious:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grU3esNMntU&t=11s

EDIT: just noticed the article that @MariaLoranger linked actually mentions the Marketplace segment and includes a link to it.  Sorry for being redundant above!

[denkom]

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing @MariaLoranger!

[Korth]

I still think no guarantees with (PM) prepaid service.

By using Public Mobile we automatically "agree" to the Public Mobile Terms of Service.  Which (as required by CRTC Wireless Code) means they're only required to provide us 30 days notice of price changes/increases.  We've also "agreed" that PM can change their Terms of Service at any time, again with 30 days notice.  And we've even "agreed" that we automatically "agree" to these new/changed Terms of Service in advance, provided we continue using Public Mobile.

Prepaid still enforces a legal contract - for the duration.  It implies that future durations can be renewed on the same terms (especially when AutoPay is invoked) ... but that is not a contractual requirement.

[will13am]

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@Korth wrote:

Surprising to see a court address such a small claim ($5 x 22 months = $110 total) and to see it entirely circumvent CRTC/CCTS arbitration.  Clearly intended to set a legal precedent or send a message (or just a particularly compelling litigation to a small claims judge having a whimsical day).  I wonder if Bell could appeal the decision through a CCTS complaint (though they likely won't bother in a one-off case like this, too much bad press for too little gain).

But I'm not sure this court ruling really applies much to PM.  Because it's described as hinging on the interpretation of exactly what constitutes a "contract".  PM is all strictly prepaid, there is no contract and no agreement (in the legal context) beyond PM providing the agreed-upon plan/service for the entire duration of the billing cycle - and providing a minimum 30 day notice of any changes to their prices or terms of service.  So no real guarantees (and no real requirement of any) that prices will remain unchanged 30 or 90 days later - or even that discontinued plans/prices need to be "grandfathered" - when it's time to renew.

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It sure does.  Read my post carefully. 

[Korth]

Surprising to see a court address such a small claim ($5 x 22 months = $110 total) and to see it entirely circumvent CRTC/CCTS arbitration.  Clearly intended to set a legal precedent or send a message (or just a particularly compelling litigation to a small claims judge having a whimsical day).  I wonder if Bell could appeal the decision through a CCTS complaint (though they likely won't bother in a one-off case like this, too much bad press for too little gain).

But I'm not sure this court ruling really applies much to PM.  Because it's described as hinging on the interpretation of exactly what constitutes a "contract".  PM is all strictly prepaid, there is no contract and no agreement (in the legal context) beyond PM providing the agreed-upon plan/service for the entire duration of the billing cycle - and providing a minimum 30 day notice of any changes to their prices or terms of service.  So no real guarantees (and no real requirement of any) that prices will remain unchanged 30 or 90 days later - or even that discontinued plans/prices need to be "grandfathered" - when it's time to renew.

[will13am]

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@mimmo wrote:

@ShawnC13 you still have cable?   :)Lol 

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I still have cable TV.  As a sports fan, it is the only reliable way to get my weekend fill.  Having said that my cable providing is working on rolling out an online edition of cable TV where subscribers can login to an account and stream to a computer or set top box.  I am looking forward to seeing that option being available in the not too distant future.  Even then, I cannot cut the cord because that would disable the internet. 

[will13am]

This Bell caper sets major legal precedence to the situation we had with the 2016 fall promo price increase.  When Bell offers discounted packages, they are wickedly conniving in how they play around with the words.  They will show the price of the promotional package for the stated duration with an asterisk pointing to the fine print that most of us don't bother reading fully.  The fine print generally says that the amount of the discount that results in the promotional price is guaranteed for the duration of the contract.  However, the base price is subject to change per the terms of service.  So effectively Bell can implement a base price increase every month if they so choose.  As long as they honor the fixed discount, they are on side with the legal obligations.  The agent who sold the plan did not properly explain this nuance and claimed the final price to be fixed for the contract duration.  When we signed up for the 2016 fall promotion, we accepted the terms of service which provides for a price changes as Public Mobile sees fit provided we are given notice.  Fortunately for us, the post below modified the terms of service to our benefit.  Given this ruling, the grandfathering of our 2016 fall promo pricing is on pretty solid foundation going forward.

https://productioncommunity.publicmobile.ca/t5/Announcements/UPDATE-Last-day-to-get-our-limited-time...

[ShawnC13]

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@mimmo wrote:

@ShawnC13 you still have cable?   :)Lol 

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Yes couple of young kids still.  Plus I the family still goes through ~700GB of data a month

[mimmo]

@ShawnC13 you still have cable?   :)Lol 

[ShawnC13]

Very interesting.  I wonder what it is like without a contract like we have here with PM.  Thanks for the article it was a good read.  Makes mew antt o call my cable provider and see what I can get them to "offer" me lol