I purchased two cell phones and service with Verizon through shock city cellular on 2-2-07. I paid 370.51 for the two phones at the time of the contract. It was a Motorola KRZR phone and an LG chocolate phone. We were very unhappy with the cell phone service through Verizon and were having a hard time keeping up with the bills (1st bill was over 300.00) so we chose to cancel our Verizon service and transfer over to Alltel. I paid 175.00 per line as an early termination fee to Verizon wireless. The service rep at the ALLTEL store called in to Verizon wireless to verify that this was all we would have to pay. On 6-4-07 I received a notice in the mail from shock city cellular stating that I was in breach of my contract and that they were charging me 350.00 per phone for cancelling before 181 days of signing the contract, further the letter stated that a total of 700.00 was already charged to my husbands credit card to cover the 350.00 for each phone. The reason for this was that we had cancelled before 181 days and not returned the cell phones to shock city cellular. So much time had passed between 2-2-07 (date of contract) and 6-4-07 (notice came from shock city) that I had already sold the phones on the internet and had no way of getting them back to return them.
I believed that when I signed the contract for service and paid 370.51 for my phones that I was PURCHASING them when come to find out that I still was being charged an extra 700.00 for the phones for a total of 970.51. I believed that these were my cell phones and that I could do what I wished with them. The retail price of these phones if purchased new in a store is not even 350.00 each, but I paid more than that for them when you include the initial 370.51. They sent a copy of a contract signed by me which was never reviewed by me or explained to me by the salesperson who assisted me. Further copies of all signed documents were NEVER sent home with me at the time of purchase. If they had been I would have continued my service for 181 days and then cancelled to avoid all of this. I feel that I was mislead and manipulated into signing something that was not explained. If you notice on the bottom of the WIRELESS EQUIPMENT PURCHASE AGREEMENT there is a copy of the imprint of my card from 02-02-07 I signed the bottom of this paper to agree to the 370.51 charge at the initial signing of the contract. I believe that the top portion of this document was covered up with a piece of paper when it was presented to me for signing. The first time I ever saw this document in it's entirety was on 6-4-07 when it came in the mail to me with the notice of the 700.00 dollar charge. I do not believe that a company can be this misleading, I have had cell phones for many years and had no trouble like this.
I have disputed the charge with the credit card company without success and at the time of this letter I have mailed payment in full to my husbands credit card to avoid further interest accumulating on the card. I have contacted shock city cellular several times and not been able to resolve the issue.
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