Did you end up suing them?
Ultimately the ETF never came and I went month-to-month. By the way, mentioning that you're recording the phone conversation changes drastically how a CSR treats you.
Not that there's much reason to not just state it outright, but I'm curious whether I have to give notice that I'm recording a conversation if notice of recording has already been given to me.
When I call up a company and they say the call may be recorded... they've just given me permission to record the call.
No.
"Some states currently require that all parties consent to the recording: California,[18] Connecticut,[19] Florida,[20] Hawaii (in general a one-party state, but requires two-party consent if the recording device is installed in a private place),[19] Illinois (debated, see next section), Maryland,[21] Massachusetts[19] (only "secret" recordings are banned[22]), Montana (requires notification only),[23] Nevada,[24] New Hampshire,[25] Pennsylvania,[26] and Washington (however, section 3 of the Washington law states that permission is given if any of the parties announces that they will be recording the call in a reasonable manner if the recording contains that announcement).[27]"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_recording_laws#Unite...
>No.
Ok, well then when you get a Call Center rep on the phone, tell them that this phone conversation may be recorded.
The machine tells the caller that the call will be recorded. The caller stays on the line. Both parties have just consented to have the call recorded. They have not spoken about the disposition of that recording, but they're fully aware that this is no longer a completely private conversation.
As far as I can tell, there's no need for a second consent to have the call recorded on / copied to server 25126B and also server 952C... and so there should also be no need for an additional consent to have the call recorded on the caller's home PC.
If they're telling me the call may be recorded, they're telling me I may record the call. They've given explicit permission to me to record the call by telling me I may. Whether they choose to record it themselves, they've given themselves that option, and let me know it might happen. If I don't want to be recorded, I can hang up. Likewise, if they don't want to be recorded, they can hang up. Carrying on knowing what is happening after you've been informed of something seems to be about as consensual as it can get.
1. They typically don't say "this call may be recorded", they say "this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes" or something along those lines. It should be obvious that the "may" here doesn't mean "anyone has permission to record it", but instead it means it might be recorded".
2. You're giving a completely uninformed opinion about a legal matter in which you are basically advising people to do something that might break their state's laws. Your "common sense" interpretation of a statement does not necessarily have anything at all to do with the actual legality. In such circumstances, you should always assume the worst, which in this case is that it is illegal for you to record the conversation unless you explicitly inform the other party.
The best part is, I didn't even have the credit for the subsidy so I had to give them a 2 year deposit on the full price of the phones. But since THEY (technically) changed the contract by raising my monthly fee from 5 cents to 8 cents or something, I GOT THE DEPOSIT BACK!
I sold the phones on eBay and made a lot of money (for a high school kid).
I think the charge was called 'federal universal service charge' and there was a whole guide on how to use it to your advantage. You had to sound really confident and have your contract open to the relevant clauses so you could confidently read it to them over and over.