Greater Dayton Volunteer Lawyers Project
GDVLP Pro Bono Volunteers Find Creative Solutions to Help A Client in Need! JJ
ohn Musto, an attorney with the City of Dayton Law Department, enjoys volunteering to assist low-income individuals with legal programs they are facing with consumer issues. John doesn’t always use legal solutions to solve the client’s problem, though. Sometimes he gets creative to find the right approach for the situation at hand. Recently, John took an assignment to assist Ardella Willison, an 83-year-old disabled widow who was unsuccessful in reasoning with AT&T regarding charges for DirecTV services. Ms. Willison had moved from her home in Dayton to senior housing in Xenia that does not allow satellite TV. Payments for services continued to be withdrawn from her account, even though she was no longer using the service but it took some time before her caretaker discovered the charges. “I mean $3,000 has a large impact on anyone – but you look at a disabled senior citizen on a fixed income and this has a large impact on her,” said John. John took two steps to move this dispute towards resolution. First, he assisted Ms. Willison in filing a complaint through the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and sent a demand letter to AT&T. Last year, the Ohio Attorney General’s Office received more than 1,000 complaints about cable and satellite TV services, including more than 100 from consumers in the service area covered by the Greater Dayton Volunteer Lawyers Project. John also contacted Cornelius (“Cory”) Frolik, a Staff Writer at the Dayton Daily News. AT&T agreed to issue a refund to Ms. Willison after being contacted by the Dayton Daily News. Mr. Frolik’s article was published on January 28th. The effective combination of a complaint through the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and the forthcoming article from the Dayton Daily News provided great incentive for AT&T to settle this matter amicably. Contact from the Dayton Daily News provided motivation to reach a resolution sooner rather than later. The GDVLP is grateful to John for taking on this matter and providing assistance to Ms. Willison. His creativity in problem solving led to a great result for his client, and one that was reached quickly and without protracted litigation or other legal maneuvering. Would you like to assist individuals like Ms. Willison? The GDVLP needs volunteers to help others like her resolve consumer disputes. If you are interested in volunteering like John, please contact GDVLP’s Executive Director Kelly Henrici at (937) 4613857 or kelly@gdvlp.org.
www.daybar.org
John C. Musto Esq. City of Dayton Law Dept
Ms. Ardella Willison
April 2019 Dayton Bar Briefs
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