FTC Says T-Mobile Made Hundreds of Millions From Bogus SMS Charges

An anonymous reader writes "Today the FTC filed a complaint (PDF) against T-Mobile USA, alleging the carrier made hundreds of millions of dollars from bogus charges placed on customers' bills for unauthorized SMS services. "The FTC alleges that T-Mobile received anywhere from 35 to 40 percent of the total amount charged to consumers for subscriptions for content such as flirting tips, horoscope information or celebrity gossip that typically cost $9.99 per month. According to the FTC's complaint, T-Mobile in some cases continued to bill its customers for these services offered by scammers years after becoming aware of signs that the charges were fraudulent." FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez said, "It's wrong for a company like T-Mobile to profit from scams against its customers when there were clear warning signs the charges it was imposing were fraudulent. It's wrong for a company like T-Mobile to profit from scams against its customers when there were clear warning signs the charges it was imposing were fraudulent." According to the complaint, T-Mobile also made it hard for customers to figure out they were being billed for these services, and failed to provide refunds when customers complained." Here's T-Mobile's response.

Comments

T-Mobiles been the best carrier in this regard....

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe its got something to do with the fact they offer and offered a variety of pre-paid plans that kept such issues to a minimum for me, but I remember my parents having tons of trouble with Verizon's billing practices. Every month they would be in quibbling over the charges until finally they had them disable SMS altogether. Never have I had an issue with T-Mobile.

T-Mobile and the customer liable here

[Virtucon]

It's funny to see T-Mobile back-peddling on this issue however anybody who could have had the premium services dropped could have done so at any time. For somebody to not review their bill and see that $10/mo was getting charged for this is a bit incredulous. Sprint, hell all the Cell providers have this kind of shit. Having gone through it with teenagers, I can tell you I had to scrutinize the bills monthly. T-Mobile's problem is that their billing and customer service practices make it a pain in the ass to get these things turned off. So there is merit in this suit moving forward but IMO there is no premium SMS service. Shit jokes, daily bikini girl pics. It's another way to bilk you out of your money like 900 numbers. and that's something the FTC should be going after as well.

I'm also wondering about the timing of this with the pending Sprint acquisition. It'll definitely put that on hold, which will force T-Mobile to pay some hefty fine (tax) that you and I will have to pay to cover the costs of giving the government more money. It's funny how that works out: company gets fined and then the same company passes those costs onto consumers.