Legal Question in Consumer Law in Pennsylvania

Contract

Can a company have an automatic

renewal of an alarm system contract

for 3 years without notifying

consumer prior to auto renewing.

States in contract that after 3 years

contract will renew for 3 more if

within 60 days of contract end

notification is sent by consumer to

cancel. However no notice sent of

inpending date. Also in same

contract it states monthly fee will

not increase in the first 3 years. My

fee did go up. Does this give me any

legal recourse to end contract. I

want out and they state I am binded

to the automatic renewal, because I

never sent a letter. I never knew

that I needed to until I called and

they referred me to the contract. I

brought to their attention the fee

going up prior to the ended of orginal

contract. They state I still do not

have legal course out of the

contract.. HELP...


Asked on 11/24/08, 2:27 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Roger Traversa Arjont Group (Law Office of Roger Traversa)

Re: Contract

You asked about getting out of a 3 year renewal.

Some companies are cagey this way. While technically you are stuck with the contract there isn't anything they can really do to collect.

I will assume that they provided equipment and that is why the first term was locked in. Had you canceled they could have claimed that the provided equipment was consideration for a term contract. But here, they didn't do anything to deserve a new three year term.

If you are up to the fight do what you need to do to end the contract. Send a letter, stop payments, even have your bank change account numbers if they have had EFT access.

Expect they will send the matter to collections and then deal with it as a collections matter under the FDCPA. You have other options that you should puruse also, such as filing a complaint with the BBB and the Attorney General's office. But generally, they can't make the argument that they should be paid for services which you do not want and to which they have provided no consideration for a new term.

You should have an attorney help you, but if you do some research in the library you can handle it yourself.

Regards,

Roger

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Answered on 11/24/08, 3:00 pm


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