SBC notifies advertisers of possible refunds
12/12/03
By JERRI STROUD
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
SBC Communications Inc. will run advertisements
Sunday in the Post-Dispatch and 14 other papers across a five-state region
in connection with a class-action lawsuit filed by advertisers in its Smart
Yellow Pages book.
The ads notify advertisers who paid a "collection-activity fee" in
the last 1 1/2 years that they might be eligible for refunds or damages
resulting from the lawsuit. Notices will be mailed to 175,000 advertisers
next week.
The notices stem from a suit filed in 2001 by Liberty Cellular Inc.
and Blast Inc., two advertisers in Liberty, Mo. They say that the $25 late
fee doesn't represent collection costs and that their contracts with SBC
don't permit it to charge the fee in addition to interest on past-due amounts.
Circuit
Judge Thomas C. Clark of Jackson County certified the suit as a class action
and granted a summary judgment to the plaintiffs in August
2002. SBC appealed the judgment and the class certification, but on Nov.
26, the Missouri Supreme Court refused to overturn the original ruling.
SBC
says its contracts with Yellow Pages advertisers require them to pay collection
costs if they don't pay their bills on time.
Bloomberg News contributed to this
report.
Reporter Jerri Stroud:
E-mail: jerristroud@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8384
Copyright 2003 St. Louis Post-Dispatch. All rights reserved.
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