WiLine Hides True Service Contract Terms from Customers, Class Action Suit Alleges

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WiLine Networks faces a proposed class action lawsuit that alleges the business and home internet provider has systematically overbilled customers by secretly increasing rates without notice, in amounts and with frequency not permitted by its contracts.

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The 43-page fraud lawsuit accuses WiLine of deliberately concealing critical, “one-sided” contract terms from customers, who allegedly receive no warning of the frequent billing increases and are subject to an illegal automatic renewal scheme whose terms are not disclosed. The suit alleges WiLine, which provides internet service in 45 staters, utilizes “strong-arm tactics,” including threats of “astronomical” early termination fees, to lock customers into auto-renewing contracts.

When signing WiLine’s service agreement, the case says, prospective customers agree to be bound “to this Order and Service Agreement Terms and Conditions as posted on www.wiline.com,” implying that the same service terms to which the customer is agreeing are posted on the defendant’s website. The filing claims this language in the service agreement, presented “in the fine print using 8-point font,” is “purposely ambiguous” and fails to inform consumers that there exists “a separate document of additional terms and conditions to be found” on the defendant’s website.

WiLine’s online service agreement terms and conditions are “buried behind two layers of the website” and can only be found if the consumer clicks a section labeled “Legal” on the bottom of the homepage and then clicks “Read More” to view a PDF with the full terms, the suit says.

“Upon reading the Terms and Conditions, which are also printed in 8-point text, it is clear why Defendant would go to such lengths to prevent Plaintiffs from discovering its terms,” the complaint reads. “The provisions serve to benefit Defendant primarily and, as expounded upon below, even require that Plaintiffs relinquish a number of their legal rights in order to be a customer of WiLine.”

Despite the allegedly one-side terms and conditions, WiLine “still breached them” by excessively and arbitrarily increasing customers’ service charges, the lawsuit claims. Though the company states in its terms and conditions that it reserves the right to apply an annual price adjustment to its service fees “based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as published by the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Statistics,” WiLine has repeatedly increased prices more than once per year and not in accordance with CPI limits, the complaint charges.

Moreover, though the same terms and conditions provide that customers will receive at least 30 days prior notice of any price adjustments, WiLine has often failed to provide requisite written notice of any such price increases, the filing claims.

The lawsuit further claims that WiLine subjects customers to automatic renewals of their contracts without providing proper notice of the automatic renewal terms and offering any means by which customers can opt out. Instead, customers are frequently “caught off guard” when their contract terms renew and face “exorbitant” early termination fees if they want to cancel their service before the contract term is up.

The WiLine lawsuit looks to cover all individuals and businesses in California that, within the applicable statute of limitations period, incurred service rate increases in connection with services provided by WiLine that were not allowed by the customer service agreement and the service agreement terms and conditions they entered into with WiLine.

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