California judge rules early cell phone termination fees illegal

"The preliminary, tentative judgment orders Sprint Nextel to pay customers $18.2 million in reimbursements and, more importantly, orders Sprint to stop trying to collect another $54.7 million from California customers (some 2 million customers total) who have canceled their contracts but refused or failed to pay the termination fee"
Source

I would hope it might apply to ALL phone companies.

Congrats to the Judge with the "WILL" power to do justice.

That said, I fear that it will do to another court, one the phone companies can buy, er, convince it's ok.

This is great that ETF fee sucks. I hope all phone companies have to adopt this policy. I wonder if i will get my money back from Att&t from a couple years ago if they have to follow this also?

edit 7 for &

[edit on 31-7-2008 by isa75]