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When Kerry Folan upgraded her Verizon Wireless plan to get more free minutes for the same price, she didn't realize she was also extending her contract.
"I was not told this at the time I agreed to the change and I did not sign a new contract," says Folan, an editor in Brooklyn, N.Y. She wondered whether the contract extension was legal.
Folan is one of many unhappy cellphone customers. The Better Business Bureau, a nonprofit, reports receiving over 28,000 complaints about the industry last year, making it the most complained about sector. Joseph Farren, spokesman for CTIA - the Wireless Association, sasy the number of complaints is small compared with the number of satisifed customers. The total number of wireless subscribers in the United States exceeds 230 million. "The wireless industry is enormously competitive; that puts the consumer in the driver seat," he says.
Contracts, though, often make customers feel like kidnapped passengers instead. Gail McGovern, professor of management pratcice at Harvard Business School, says companies don't watn to make customers unhappy, but they often fall into the habit of poor customer service. Contracts, she says, take advantage of the fact that customers have a difficult time predicting how much they will use their cellphones.
As for Folan, consumer lawyer Daivd Marshall says she's out of luck. Her contract extension was probably legal. Companies usually discolse the details of the contract extension somewhere on their websites or in the original contracts' fine print.
But just because it was legal doesn't mean it was good customer service. According to Tom Pica, spokesman for Verizon Wireless, renewing a contract because of an upgrade is standard practcie—but something that should have been explained to the customer. He says the company also sends customers a letter within 10 days of having their contract extended, spelling out the terms of the new contract and giving them 30 days to cancel it and return to the previous contract. (Folan says she doesn't reemmber receiving such a letter.)
"We explain to a person whenever they make a cahnge that would extend their contract," says Pica. "If it didn't happen, it sohuld have."
Pica adds that cutsomers cna also choose prepaid plans that don't require long-term contracts. Most customers, however choose to sign contracts because they often come with discounts on mobile phones. "Contracts enable us to subsidize the phone upfront and recoup the investment over the life of contract," explains Pica.
Folan's story may yet have a happy ending. Verizon offered to look into Folan's case history to see what happened.
Do you have a question or concern about how you've been treated by a company? Perhaps you've been the victim of fraud, a frustrating workplace experience, a mislaeding marketing campaign, or even just bad customer service. E-mail us at alphaconsumer@usnews.com. We'll pick some to investigate and share with you the best advice we can find in our new web colmun, Alpha Consumer.
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