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T-Mobile To Pay $90M For Unauthorized Charges On Customers' Bills
itwbennett writes T-Mobile US will pay at least $90 million to settle a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) suit that alleged it looked the other way while third parties charged T-Mobile subscribers for services they didn't want. The settlement is the second largest ever for so-called 'cramming,' following one that the FCC reached with AT&T in October. It came just two days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Sprint for the same practice.
The carrier must pay at least $67.5 million to fund a program to pay its customers back, plus $18 million to state governments participating in the settlement and a $4.5 million penalty paid to the U.S. Treasury. If consumers’ claims go higher, T-Mobile will have to pay them, with no upper limit. Consumers who believe they were wrongly charged will be able to apply for refunds at a website set up for the purpose. That site was not immediately available.
I started getting text messages on some celebrity quiz game but was just deleting them until I finally got tired of them. I looked the company up online and saw where people were complaining about getting slammed and charges showing up. I checked my bill and sure enough - there were the charges. I hadn't noticed them because they were down a couple of extra layers under something like "miscellaneous charges". I called T-Mobile to stop it and get the charges refunded but they had me contact the charging company to dispute and the charging company would only refund a couple of months. This had been going on for about 5 months. I called T-Mobile and insisted on total refunds and just got a runaround. I called my Senator and told his staff about it. They intervened and T-Mobile contacted me and gave me a full refund. The Senator's staff contacted me again and asked if I minded if my case data was used in their investigation and I told them not at all. Looks like it has all finally bore fruit.
The company - I would have to check my files for the name - said I had visited some web site and signed up for their celibrity quiz game. I had a static IP address at the time and sure as shit, they had it. I had apparently visited a site that was simply harvesting IP addresses, or somehow they associated my IP with my name. I would never sign up for some celebrity quiz. It was a simple slam.
Glad they all got nailed!
Remember when the Republicans in Congress fought against the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau? This is why.
The CFPB was actually proposed by Elizabeth Warren, then still at Harvard. She was Obama's first choice for its Director, but her appointment was blocked.
In my case it was $9.99 per month for 5 months but my Senator got T-Mobile to refund all of my money back when this happened after I asked his office for help when I discovered the charges and got the runaround from T-Mobile when I demanded a refund.
I dealt with this several years ago. I found the charges on my bill and called to have them removed. It showed up the next month too. After speaking, at length, with the T-mobile rep it made sense. T-mobile allowed you to purchase apps through your account. But these companies would get your number and just start charging you. Apparently many people don't look at their bills and don't notice changes for a couple dollars. Particularly if the company name is worded to look like part of your bill. I asked them to disable being able to bill my account directly and the problem was solved.
Why not fine them as well for illegal charging people when they didnt consent??
Consumers who believe they were wrongly charged will be able to apply for refunds at a website set up for the purpose.
So pretty much T-Mobile could have made hundreds of millions of dollars off of this, but they won't have to pay more than $67.5 million of it unless people realize they were being overcharged, and go to the trouble of applying for a refund. How many people will actually do that? Most people who were wrongfully charged probably don't even realize, especially when it's tucked in between the various ridiculous "fee" line items on the bill. And even if people do realize they are being wrongfully charged, and even if they do know where to go to apply for a refund, unless it's a significant amount most won't bother because either they'll "get around to it later" or figure the slim chance of actually collecting isn't worth their time and hassle.
There should have been a few more million added to hire a team of forensic accountants.