Attorney Moshe Fogel is quite pleased, having taken on the country’s cellular telephone companies and emerged with a victory in hand.

Fogel filed a class action suite after realizing that a client sending a SMS text message to a kosher phone, which is blocked to text messaging, will pay for the message which will never arrive. The cellular providers are well aware of the ‘bug’ in the system, one that is turning handsome profits for them since they are charging for messages they do not even have to deliver. All kosher phones are closed to text messaging, without exception.

Fogel explained that he tried the nice way first, and only one company responded, The Pelephone Company stated it would halt the practice and refund money to clients, not the cost to the firm for SMS messages, but the amount they were charged, in the form of a credit. Clients that have moved to another carrier would be reimbursed too.

The other companies, Cellcom, Orange and MIRS however ignored his request until the matter hit the courtroom. Realizing they did not have a case, after Fogel presented his suit, the cellular telephone companies voluntarily cut a deal and in essence, they agreed to the same terms as did Pelephone. Fogel explained they are also scared that if they fought it, they would be facing a major national class action suit.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)