Verizon\u2019s \u201cargument was pretty weak\u201d<\/p>\n
Roach said he did not consult with a lawyer on his small claims case, instead opting to do it all himself. \u201cThe first time I showed up to court for the original date, they asked for proof of the returned mail summons, and I did not have that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The court hearing was rescheduled. When it was eventually held, the carrier sent a representative to argue against Roach.<\/p>\n
\u201cTheir argument was pretty weak, I guess,\u201d Roach said. \u201cIt was basically like, \u2018Well, he didn\u2019t pay the two months of service, so we didn\u2019t unlock his phone. We offered him a settlement but he rejected it.\u2019\u2026 My argument was, yeah, the terms had changed in kind of a consumer-unfriendly way. But beyond that, it was the fact that the terms had changed from something that was legal to something that was not legal with the federal regs. So regardless of the fact that the terms had changed, the current terms were illegal, which I thought was my strongest argument. And then I also put in that it was probably a violation of Kansas consumer protection law, which I\u2019m glad I did.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roach said that toward the end of the hearing, the judge indicated that she couldn\u2019t make a judgment based on FCC regulations and would need to rule on what the Kansas court has jurisdiction over. She issued the ruling that Verizon violated the state\u2019s consumer protection law about five or six weeks later, he said.<\/p>\n
Given that the FCC hasn\u2019t acted on Verizon\u2019s petition to change the unlocking rules, the federal regulations \u201chaven\u2019t changed at all in regards to Verizon\u2019s obligation to unlock devices,\u201d Roach said. He believes it would be relatively easy for consumers who were similarly harmed to beat Verizon in court or even to pursue a class action.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would think this would be a slam dunk for any further cases,\u201d Roach said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I have any grounds anymore since my damages have been resolved, but it seems like it\u2019d be a very easy class action for somebody.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Verizon\u2019s \u201cargument was pretty weak\u201d Roach said he did not consult with a lawyer on his small claims…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":317436,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-317435","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-mobile","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317435","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317435"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317435\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}