CELLULAR PHONE FIRM AGREES TO SETTLEMENT; SERVICE IN WESTLAKE TO PAY ALMOST $60,000 IN BILLING CASE.Byline: Jesse Hiestand Daily News Staff Writer A Westlake Village cellular telephone provider agreed Thursday to pay nearly $60,000 in civil penalties and restitution In the context of Criminal Law, state programs under which an offender is required, as a condition of his or her sentence, to repay money or donate services to the victim or society; with respect to maritime law, the restoration of articles lost by jettison, done when the for unfair business practices related to customer billing, officials said. DCN DCN Document Control Number DCN DLA (Defense Logistics Agency) Corporate Network DCN Disconnect DCN Direction des Constructions Navales (France) DCN Declaration Control Number DCN Data Communication Network Cellular, a branch office of Digital Communications Transmitting text, voice and video in binary form. See communications. Network of Woodland Hills, avoided a jury trial and possible $250,000 fine by reaching a settlement with the Ventura County District Attorney's Office. ``We've been negotiating all through the case trying to reach a settlement that was reasonable to both sides,'' Deputy District Attorney Patricia Malone Patricia "Pat" Malone (1899 - 1971) was an English stage actress. Pat Malone was the daughter of a London theatrical director, Captain J.A.E. Malone (d. 1928) and she began acting at an early age. said of the Consumer and Environmental Protection Unit. ``Settling it saves the cost of litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. for both sides.'' That is how DCN officials see it as well. ``The company decided that the legal fees were going to be so high that it's better and quicker to pay them what they want and put it to bed,'' said President Robert Mogadam. Following up on complaints from customers, prosecutors charged DCN in November with false advertising and unfair competition affecting about 100 customers in the Westlake Village area. The company was accused of billing customers for two services without getting their authorization to do so. DCN regularly gave new customers three free months of roadside assistance service, worth $3.99 per month, and a call-manager service that regularly costs $4.99 per month. Unless customers sent back a form declining these options, they were regularly charged for them after the introductory period, Malone said. Prosecutors said this amounted to an unfair business practice because the company should have been asking its customers whether they wanted the service, not whether they didn't want it. Also, DCN misled customers by adding a $5 ``billing surcharge'' to each month's bill, she said. Customers may have been misled into believing this was a governmental tax because it was described as a ``tariff'' in small print on the back of the service contracts. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the settlement, DCN admitted no wrongdoing wrong·do·er n. One who does wrong, especially morally or ethically. wrong  do but agreed to pay $30,000 in civil penalties to Ventura County and $28,426.70 in restitution to customers. Whatever restitution money is not used within six months will go to the county library fund. Mogadam said he expects most of the money to end up in the fund because these violations occurred up to four years ago and it may be difficult to track down some former customers. He said the surcharge An overcharge or additional cost. A surcharge is an added liability imposed on something that is already due, such as a tax on tax. It also refers to the penalty a court can impose on a fiduciary for breaching a duty. was ``totally legal'' and that his company simply assumed customers enjoyed the two optional services because they did not call cancel them. |
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