Monday, March 19, 2012

AT&T Gives up! Will not appeal court ruling!

Well 1 down millions more to go! 

AT&T won’t appeal after all a data throttling case it lost in small claims court to a customer, one of a growing number of lawsuits against companies for reneging on marketing claims.
The wireless carrier agreed Friday to pay $850 in damages and $85 in court costs awarded to wireless customer Matthew Spaccarelli by a small claims court in California in February, according to The Associated Press.

Following Spaccarelli’s victory, AT&T threatened to appeal the award if the disgruntled customer didn’t agree to a gag order in the case. Requiring the signing of non-disclosure agreements in damage award cases is a common practice by companies to prevent the people they’re paying off from talking about a case after it’s settled.

But AT&T wasn’t able to muzzle Spaccarelli, and the company is throwing in the towel anyways. AT&T isn’t giving any reasons for its change of heart, AP reported.

Congrats Matthew! Now for the rest of you, get started here!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

AT&T is now trying to settle QUIETLY out of court!

You should head over to NPR and read the story about AT&T trying to QUIETLY settle the loss in court to Spaccarelli!  When the suits start rolling in it will be amazing to see how many people they will settle with.  I hope none honestly.  If you really think about it how much PR, Lawers Fees etc is this one case costing them.  Get to court and sue AT&Tnow over your unlimited data plan!

Remember Unlimited means Unlimited!

NPR Link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=148534953

AT&T Tells Customer It Will Shut Off His Service Over Throttling!

Weeks after an AT&T customer sued the carrier over data throttling and won, the Dallas, Texas-based company is striking back.
While AT&T hopes to settle with Matthew Spaccarelli over the issue, it won’t do so unless the two sides can sit down and talk. If that cannot be arranged, AT&T will terminate service for the Simi Valley, CA resident, according to NPR.

As you know Spaccarelli fought AT&T in small claims court over the company’s policy to slow down “unlimited” data service for those users who go over certain traffic thresholds in a month. Spaccarelli won $850 in the case. After doing so, he posted online the documents he used to argue his case, encouraging others to sue as well that we linked here.

This hasn’t sat well with the second largest carrier in the US, who claims legal settlements usually include non-disclosure agreements.

In a letter last Friday to Spaccarelli, AT&T asked him:
“To be quiet about the settlement talks, including the fact that it offered to start them, another common stipulation. Spaccarelli said he was not interested in settling, and forwarded the letter to The Associated Press.”
Spaccarelli said he doesn’t care about the money. The important thing to him was defeating AT&T in court.

Currently, the two sides appear at an impasse, with Spaccarelli hoping others will drag AT&T into courtrooms across the US and AT&T threatening to cut off its customer altogether.

In 2011, AT&T started slowing down data service for “unlimited” customers once they reached the top five percent of data users in their area. In reaction to Spaccarelli’s victory, AT&T said it would stop throttling those five percent. Instead, it will apply the showdown to anyone that uses 3GB of data in a given month.

Personally, none of this looks good for AT&T. For one, AT&T has no one to blame for this situation but themselves. They agreed to grandfather its unlimited data plan customers when the company discontinued the service in 2010. Second, threatening a customer is never good in the PR department, especially when there are other opinions available.

For example like us, Spaccarelli could move his service to Verizon Wireless or Sprint and still keep pushing others to sue AT&T.  Should Spaccarelli keep pushing AT&T even if it means his cellular service is cut off? What would you do?

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Sprint Understands True Unlimited - And using AT&T as an example of what NOT to do!


I will go on record and say that I do not work for Sprint but these guys have it right!  I remember before I moved to NYC I had Sprint and they had GREAT reception in NYC, a whole lot better then AT&T ever had!  Now they are using AT&Ts moronic move as advertisement for their TRUE Unlimited Plan.  If you do not have a plan yet go over there!

Friday, March 9, 2012

The Truth Behind AT&T Throttling a great video by AppAdvice



The good folks over at App Advice put together this very damning video on how useless AT&T throttling makes the iPhone.  You can see how in data tests and actual use that it makes the usage of simple programs on the phone damn near nil.  More and more reasons to take the Deathstar that is AT&T to court.  This is why I am doing it.  It is very sad to see it having to come to this.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

If you want to see the BS spin from the Deathstar AT&T themselves...

AT&T have their own page on their site to try and spin WHY they think it is ok for them to Limit your Unlimited Plan at 3 GB.  This page is the sorriest page I have seen in awhile.  It does make me think if over 3 GB is knocking down their network why do they offer 5 GB plans? I believe if they need to throttle us then throttle us at the highest plan that they offer.  Oh wait they can't! The reason is that the price for our "Unlimited" plan is the SAME as the 3 GB plan they offer. If they throttled us at their higher plan we would be getting 2 MB for free! AT&T are nothing but swindlers trying to take more of my money by reneging on a contract that they I agreed to.  I cannot wait to sue their asses off!

Link: http://www.att.com/esupport/datausage.jsp?source=IZDUel1160000000U

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Check out what Matt Spaccarelli used to win his case against AT&T



Matt Spaccarelli is the guy who went up against AT&T and won.  He has put together a page that hosts all of the documents that he used to start, prepare and say in court.  There are great documents here and can be very helpful for you.  We will also host links to these on our Resources page. 

The link to his page is: http://www.taporc.com/

Sign the petition over at change.org to stop AT&T from throttling!

Over at change.org a woman by the name of Jane Foody has created a petition to stop AT&T from throttling our unlimited data plans.  Go over there and sign her petition and maybe AT&T will listen.  I doubt they will but we can hope!

Link: http://www.change.org/petitions/at-t-stop-throttling-the-data-speeds-on-plans-with-unlimited-data

How to fight AT&T in small claims court and WIN

PublikDemand has a great blog post describing in detail how to sue AT&T over data throttling.  Then readwriteweb added to this post by adding there own article diving deeper into what you need to do.  Both are very descriptive pieces that we have added to our Steps to Sue section with everything you need from Beginning, Filing, Notification and Proving your case.  I want to thank them both for putting such a detailed posting up it will help a lot of people!

Lets use these step and file as many lawsuits as possible to sue AT&T.  and then please come back and post you stories in our comments section so we can help others! 

There are 17 million customers still on the Unlimited plan...

Fact: If only 1% sued AT&T and won $850.00 that would cost AT&T approximately 144 Million Dollars!  Lets band together and make this number a reality.  In addition, the amount of money and lawyers AT&T will have expend will multiply that! You bait and switch with us AT&T for more money then we will kindly relieve you of it!

A great article about groups banding together to all sue AT&T

Another great article on the claimsjournal Discusses how many people are moving forward with small claims lawsuits over companies and banding together.  We are stronger together and with a mass of people suing and winning can be a large loss for AT&T

Link: http://www.claimsjournal.com/news/national/2012/03/05/202336.htm

How to sue in small claims cour in your state

A great page on freeadvice.com has all the information you need to bring someone to small claims court depending on your state.  It has Max amount you can sue for, Brochures in each state that gives you more specific information on your states rules as well as links to the courts and the Attorney General of each state.  This is an amazing starting point for everyone... go check it out and lets all sue AT&T.

Link: http://law.freeadvice.com/resources/smallclaimscourts.htm

Can Every iPhone User Sue AT&T for $850? Time.com

A news article has just been posted on Time.com discussing this whole issue - It is a very straight forward article about whats going on - Have a read it is very interesting.

time.com Can Everyone Sue AT&T for $850?