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AT&T Sued For Systematic iPhone Overbilling

Posted by timothy on from the so-android-users-are-left-in-the-cold? dept.

Hugh Pickens writes writes "UPI reports that AT&T is facing a lawsuit that says AT&T routinely bills for 7 percent to 14 percent more data transactions than normally take place, which could blossom into a costly class-action case. Court papers claim that attorneys set up a test account for an iPhone, then closed all of its apps and left the device unused for 10 days. AT&T still billed the account for 2,292 KB of usage. 'A significant portion of the data revenues were inflated by AT&T's rigged billing system for data transactions,' say court papers filed on behalf of AT&T customer Patrick Hendricks. 'This is like the rigged gas pump charging you when you never even pulled your car into the station.' Attorneys say they would file to have the case moved to class-action status, which makes the outcome relevant to all of AT&T's iPhone accounts."

4 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. AT&T's Fault? by Kneo24 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Nothing in the article shows how it couldn't have been the phone itself doing it, not AT&T doing it. If the device is ON, but not being used, well, there's a lot of shit that goes on in the back-end of things, like update checking, etc...

    1. Re:AT&T's Fault? by nhstar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Agreed. It would be interesting to know if they ran the same test with the data service actually turned off on the phone. Then I'd start to see fault with the carrier.

      --
      --- no sig to see here... move along.
    2. Re:AT&T's Fault? by daniorerio · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Maybe they did, but the phones turned off didn't get billed so they're not mentioned?

      From the provider's point of view it is pretty easy to determine if a phone was actually on or not, so if you're going to overbill it's probably wise to overbill phones that were actually turned on...

    3. Re:AT&T's Fault? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      People like you are the problem with western society today.

      You purport strong conclusions based on nothing but your incidental personal anecdotes and "feelings".

      How do you not see the irony there?