Friday, August 01, 2014

Republic Snubs Overcharged Commercial Customers


Legal cases often show a company's true colors.  Consider Republic Services defense of a decade of overcharges to commercial customers.

Republic issued a general denial of owing anything at all, at least to the plaintiffs. The response said:
  1. Plaintiffs’ claims and the relief sought are barred in whole or in part by the applicable statutes of limitations.
  2. The voluntary payment doctrine precludes Plaintiffs’ claims and the relief sought.
  3. Plaintiffs’ claims cannot be maintained as a class action on behalf of the putative class alleged in the Petition.
Republic claims their egregious behavior occurred too long ago to be legally compensible.  They also cite that commercial customers willingly paid unauthorized charges, allowed by lax city staff as they never audited Republic's compliance with contract provisions. 

The City of San Angelo is yet to release their findings on Republic's overcharges under the commercial franchise agreement.   One City Councilmember said contract negotiations were the only leverage the city had on behalf of 2,000 commercial customers.  It appears this person was right in their assessment. 

1 comment:

Sherwood said...

Republic Services has been overcharging me for years. What I thought was just increases due to their increased costs turned out to be increases just because they wanted to. When I contacted them to get a rate reduction, my rate went from $550/month to $200/month. The so called fuel recovery fee dropped from $150/month to $50/month.

And now, 2 months after I signed a new agreement, what do they do? Try to increase my rate by over 20%. Again, for no real reason. They are trying to increase the Fuel Recovery Fee by $15 as well. I would encourage EVERYONE to find another waste disposal company. I would, but they are the only game in my town.