WASHINGTON-A Pennsylvania customer of Nextel Communications Inc. has filed a lawsuit in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas against the mobile-phone carrier because Seth Lamb is mad about extra charges that appear on his bill for universal service, the telecommunications relay service and $1.55 for “federal programs cost recovery.”
These charges “were not referred to by Nextel at the time of purchase of Nextel service plans and are imposed unilaterally by Nextel at its discretion,” said Lamb.
One of Lamb’s attorneys called it an outrage. “These companies advertise fixed prices for bundles of minutes then add charges that appear to be taxes to unsuspecting customers,” said Anthony J. Bolognese.
Nextel’s spokeswoman, Leigh Horner, said that as of Tuesday, Nextel had not been served with the lawsuit and could not comment.
Lamb’s other attorney, Richard Greenfield, told RCR Wireless News that Sprint PCS is next. “We have been approached by a Sprint customer,” said Greenfield.
On another related lawsuit, a scheduling conference is scheduled for Monday in the lawsuit the state of Missouri has filed against Nextel and Sprint PCS. The conference is expected to schedule a trial date for the lawsuit, which also deals with how charges are reflected on bills.
Finally, the state of Louisiana has joined in a rounding-up lawsuit against Cingular Wireless L.L.C. “Defendants fail to adequately disclose and explain to customers the fact that they are charging customers for ‘dead time’ or non-communication time. ‘Dead time’ includes the time after a call has ended due to signal failure or time after a called party had terminated the call, but before the wireless subscriber pushes the ‘end button’ on their mobile unit,” reads the complaint filed in federal court in Louisiana.
