This press release announced that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has certified a $100 million class action lawsuit against Bell Mobility. The allegation is that expiry dates on pre-paid services are illegal:
The lawsuit, which includes more than 1 million class members in Ontario, alleges that Bell systemically breaches its contracts with its pre-paid wireless customers by seizing credit balances. In particular, the lawsuit alleges that pre-paid wireless services payments are “gift cards”, as defined by Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, and cannot have an expiry date. The plaintiffs are seeking $100 million in damages from Bell.
The allegations in the lawsuit have not yet been proven in court.
Oh joy. This affects customers from Bell Mobility along with brands Virgin Mobile Canada and Solo Mobile from May 4, 2010 onwards. This can go two ways. Bell will settle out of court or they’ll fight. According to the CBC, it looks like they’re going to fight:
Bell said in an emailed statement that its business practices comply with all applicable laws and the contracts they enter into with customers.
“This is, of course, the case with our pre-paid cards, and we look forward to addressing the issue in court,” said Bell spokesperson Jacqueline Michelis in an email. “Keep in mind that the threshold for class-action certification is quite low and doesn’t address whether the claim has any merit.”
This should be fun to watch.
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This entry was posted on October 4, 2013 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Bell, Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Class Action Suit Against Bell Certified
This press release announced that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has certified a $100 million class action lawsuit against Bell Mobility. The allegation is that expiry dates on pre-paid services are illegal:
The lawsuit, which includes more than 1 million class members in Ontario, alleges that Bell systemically breaches its contracts with its pre-paid wireless customers by seizing credit balances. In particular, the lawsuit alleges that pre-paid wireless services payments are “gift cards”, as defined by Ontario’s Consumer Protection Act, and cannot have an expiry date. The plaintiffs are seeking $100 million in damages from Bell.
The allegations in the lawsuit have not yet been proven in court.
Oh joy. This affects customers from Bell Mobility along with brands Virgin Mobile Canada and Solo Mobile from May 4, 2010 onwards. This can go two ways. Bell will settle out of court or they’ll fight. According to the CBC, it looks like they’re going to fight:
Bell said in an emailed statement that its business practices comply with all applicable laws and the contracts they enter into with customers.
“This is, of course, the case with our pre-paid cards, and we look forward to addressing the issue in court,” said Bell spokesperson Jacqueline Michelis in an email. “Keep in mind that the threshold for class-action certification is quite low and doesn’t address whether the claim has any merit.”
This should be fun to watch.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
This entry was posted on October 4, 2013 at 3:37 pm and is filed under Commentary with tags Bell, Lawsuit. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.