George wrote:
dpb wrote:
mm wrote:
On Tue, 19 Jun 2007 14:04:10 -0700, "Dan" wrote:

It's probably doesn't make financial sense to hire an attorney, but
the AG thing is a good idea. Thanks.

The AG may be a good idea if the office has somethingb helpful to say,
but if they don't have something helpful, it doesn't mean much. They
are not your lawyer and they mostly know about illegal activities, and
not about all the arguments that will win in court.

That's not the purpose in calling them -- the point is to find out if
their office has made any declaration against a particular firm in
general in the pertinent jurisdiction. It's the kind of thing OP is
hoping for--that, or a class-action suit or some such.

--
But what did the company do wrong? He didn't pay for the alarm up front
(thats the "all this for $99 commercial") so the deal is that he has to
pay for the deferred installation cost over the 3 year contract period.

I didn't say the company did anything wrong -- OP asked for options to
try to minimize his out-of-pocket cancellation charges. I told him
where there might be some relief _IF_ (and that's the proverbial "big
if") there had been some judgment in his state that the particular form
of cancellation clause had been deemed excessive previously or wasn't
compliant w/ state law/regulation. Some have been, whether this
particular one has or not would be the question. It's a faint hope, for
OP, certainly. The contract terms weren't supplied so whether it is
actually a deferred installation charge or not isn't known for
sure--reasonable hypothesis, certainly.

I also told OP I figured he was stuck but that was really only way he
could likely hope for a basis on which to try to refuse to pay.
Otherwise, about his only hope is the option of trying to see if they'll
accept a partial payment or get the successor tenant to pick it up for
him (but that undoubtedly wouldn't get him relieved from the obligation
only have the other guy pay it for him as long as he so chose to do so).

--