Mr Bezrukov’s argument was that when connecting to the Unlimited Tariff Rate he couldn’t have foreseen that, during half a year, an operator would limit the number of calls and hike the subscriber fee by 30 percent with no special reasons.
Photo: Vyacheslav Reutov
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MTS Yields to Client
First time in judicial practice of Russia, a subscriber succeeded in court in enforcing the fee reduction on a cellular company. Sverdlov courts upheld the MTS client, revived initial tariff rate and ordered MTS to refund the excess amount. The analysts say MTS will be more cautious in future when changing the fees.
MTS clients in the Sverdlov Region are lodging claims to the local office of this cellular operator. They had subscribed to Unlimited Tariff Rate of MTS, but its fee surged 30 percent October 9, 2006 and a two-minute limit was introduced for the local calls, actually striping the rate of its unlimited advantage. The number of this tariff rate’s subscribers exceeds 1,200, according to the Sverdlov Region’s Bar.
The root cause of such activity of the cheated subscribers is the case won by lawyer Anatoly Bezrukov. Octyabrsky Regional Court of Yekaterinburg upheld him December 20, 2006, committing MTS to revive initial terms of the contract and refund excessive payments of at least 1,000 rubles. The award took effect once sustained by the Civil-Law Panel of the Sverdlov Region's Court on April 5.
Mr Bezrukov’s argument was that when connecting to Unlimited Tariff Rate he couldn’t have foreseen that, during half a year, an operator would limit the number of calls and hike the subscriber fee by 30 percent with no special reasons. His victory has established a precedent in the legal practice in Russia. In late past year, the country’s cellular operators were aggressively revising the tariff rates when shifting to “the caller must pay procedures” and hiking the price of the first minute in most cases.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 23, 2007
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