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You are invited to forward this newsletter to friends, colleagues and clients.
This newsletter covers:
2. Cell phone users. Beware of Verizon Wireless latest hidden price increases.
This may also be being done by other wireless providers.
3. Using our free 10-year spreadsheet for really big projects.
Eliminate spam and junk email from your inbox with Mailshell.
2. Beware hidden price increases from Verizon Wireless. (Are your "standard
clauses" enforcable?)
Like most of us, you probably carry a cell phone. It is an essential tool to
you.
If you use Verizon Wireless you may just have been hit by a price increase
without you even noticing. Even though cell phone costing are dropping every
month.
Firstly, they are now not giving automatic credit for dropped calls. You have to
call them and ask for a credit. Few people will waste 5 minutes on the phone to
get a 10 cent credit, so it all goes to their bottom line and you pay for their
bad coverage.
Costs per minute going up 4-fold to some numbers. I signed up with Prime Co.
about 1 1/2 years ago. A major attraction was their low cost international calls
(25 cents a minute).
As you may remember, Prime Co. was bought out and merged to form Verizon
Wireless.
Last month there was a little note that their would be some "adjustments" to
their international rate. I called and eventually discovered that the cost of
international calls was going from 25 cents to $1 per minute!
I checked around and this increase is now between double and 3 times the rate
charged by other wireless companies. I spoke to a manager who told me that they
had the right to unilaterally increase prices whever they wanted and if you
wanted to cancel before your contract had expired there would be a $175 penalty.
Is this legal? In our opinion, no. Even though the contract gives them the right
to make such increases, we believe this is unforcable for 2 reasons:
Firstly, it is against the public interest for a company to unilaterally do this
without the customer having any escape.
Secondly, when considering such fine print clauses the courts are required to
consider the bargaining power of the 2 parties. Seemingly unfair clauses MAY be
enforcable if the contract has been negotiated between 2 parties of similar
power, with give and take on both sides. This is not the case here. The customer
has no power to trade off contract terms with a cell phone, phone or utility
company.
In any event, the lesson is clear, despite their claimed goal of customer
satisfaction, Verizon Wireless only cares about their bottom line and seem to
have no qualms about abusing their "captive" customers. They will threaten you
with penalties if you decide to take your business elsewhere. International
prices and dropped calls this time, who knows what next time.
Our recommendation. Read everything you get from them (and other cell phone
companies) carefully and question your bill.
Please read and forward to everyone you know who might have or may be
considering Verizon Wireless. We may be little people, but enough of us can
force arrogant semi-monopolies to stop abusing us.
3. If you have a project to analyse and the columns are not printing wide
enough. Just divide all the numbers by 1,000. Thus the Property Price would be
changed from 7,000,000 to 7,000 etc. Also, for a 20 year projection, copy the
finishing numbers after 10 years to the start of a new spreadsheet.
For many useful tools you may not have known we have, go to:
http://www.mortgage-investments.com/resources/frame_Free_resources.htm
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