Legal Question in Consumer Law in Virginia

Cell Phone Contract Dispute

Purchased Alltel serv&equip from Alltalk. Required to sign Alltel & Alltalk contract. Alltalk contract required we maintain service for one year. Started experiencing problems with phone so returned to Alltalk. Long story short - manager verbally threatened to hurt me & hit my hand knocking the phone to the floor causing it to shatter. Police were called & he was arrested for assault&battery&dest of property. Tried to contact the Alltalk corp office,initially promised a call within the hour, then they hung up on us several times. This was seven months ago and we still haven't received a call. Manager found guilty & given suspended jail time, fine, etc. & was ordered to have no contact with me. Contacted Alltel since service was with them & they instructed to go to their store. The rep at the store canceled our contract & wrote a new one with Alltel. Asked about the cancelation clause in the Alltalk contract he assured us that the contract was not valid stating that Alltalk was not permitted to have secondary contracts. Yesterday received a letter from an attorney stating that we owe Alltalk $650 for cancelation & attorney fees. Do I owe this money? There is only 1 Alltalk store around, I was scared to go back-he still works there.


Asked on 4/15/05, 7:25 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys
Bernard Dietz Law Offices of Bernard C. Dietz, PC

Re: Cell Phone Contract Dispute

It depends on the terms of the contract but if I were you I would be focusing on turning the tables on them with a claim for the assault that was made by their manager. Based on your note, it seems like they broke your phone so you have a good defense to the contract claim and a decent counterclaim for assault. Good luck...

Read more
Answered on 4/15/05, 8:20 pm
Jonathon Moseley Jonathon A. Moseley

Re: Cell Phone Contract Dispute

I don't know Alltalk from back talk, but it is not uncommon for collection on these cancellation fees. Typically the person who is pulling together all of these collection fees and sending them in a batch to the attorney knows absolutely nothing about what happened, and the attorney knows even less (that is, even if the Alltalk accountant knew, they often don't clue the attorney in to what is really happening, leaving the attorney out there in the cold trying to collect on these accounts).

Whether or not you had a right to cancel under those circumstances depends on the contract and I can't say for sure. No one can say without reading the contract. However, I would suspect that there is a darn good chance the judge would find in your favor if they had to try to prove it.

Unless one is fairly sure they are going to lose, it would be best to wait for the attorney to sue you. The attorney will have to PROVE that you owe the money in court. If you explain all of this in court, the judge will probably conclude that you were justified in canceling the contract and no cancelation fee is due. (Beware, however. You can't come in and talk about what other people said. That is hearsay. You have to bring them as live witnesss to testify themselves. However, if you testified in the criminal trial, you can testify to the fact that you were there and you watched the judge find the guy guilty. So you have to plan fairly carefully how you are going to prove everything. You can't just show up and make a speech. Every poitn needs to proven by admissible evidence that is not hearsay.)

Read more
Answered on 4/20/05, 6:09 pm


Related Questions & Answers

More Consumer Law questions and answers in Virginia