Customer wins claim over obsolete phone
By DAVE DANFORTH Daily Press Staff Writer
A prominent cell phone company must pay $1,000 to remove the “hands-free” system from a customer’s car because the only phone that it works with is obsolete, a Santa Monica judge has ruled.
But Cingular Wireless saved itself $811 when Judge pro tem Donald M. Cislo declined to order it to pay the original cost of the phone itself. The customer must bear the cost of an obsolete phone, but not the system made useless as a result, his order suggested.
The case represented a partial victory for Philip Tanzini, a West Hollywood voice-over actor. He sued Cingular’s Santa Monica store after learning that Cingular had no phones to replace the StarTac 8000 model compatible with his car’s hands-free system, which cost nearly $700. To top off that indignity, he said the phone itself needed repeated replacement, and Cingular had lost the last one he had given the company to repair.
The question for the judge dealt with the phone company’s responsibility for a consumer’s later decision to buy another accessory to use with the phone. Because Cingular sold Tanzini the hands-free system, it must bear that burden, his ruling indicated.
“They give these phones away just to sign you up to the service,” the judge said. “So the company does have some
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 10, 2002. Read the original PDF.