Card Suit Against China Telecom Accepted by Court

Mei Yansheng, China Telecom magnetic cardholder, Wednesday filed a lawsuit against China Telecom Group in Xicheng District People's Court. He requested that the court rule a release of the contract between the two sides and the accused to pay back RMB100 yuan for the magnetic card plus the interests entailed therefrom. Together with Mei Yansheng who sued China Telecom Group are four other cardholders. They purchased 300 to 3,000 yuan of magnetic telephone cards respectively. Xicheng District People's Court accepted the case on Wednesday and put it on record formally on Thursday. It is estimated that there will be more cardholders to submit their indictments to the court on Thursday.

In his indictment, Mei Yansheng claimed that he bought a 100-yuan China Telecom magnetic telephone card at the Beijing Airport in early 2000. At that time, he was in dire need to make an urgent trunk call but found his handset out of power when he was waiting for the takeoff at the airport. However, after he bought the telephone card, he spent 15 minutes in looking around for a magnetic card telephone but failed to find any. All he got were IC card or coin phones. Since the plane was about to take off, he had to give up. Over the following year and more, he kept his eyes wide open looking for magnetic card telephones in public places such as stores, hotels, schools and parks in many regions since he was out often on business, but he finally got disappointed.

Mei thought that his purchase of the card meant he had fulfilled the obligation of the contract. However, the accused failed to provide related services in accordance with the contract. China Telecom took upon itself in dismantling and re-equipping card telephones on a large scale which made him unable to enjoy his rights. Therefore, he demanded that the accused bear the legal liability for breaking the contract according to the "Contract Law".



By PD Online staff member Du Minghua


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