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AT&T To Cough Up $88 Million For 'Cramming' Mobile Customer Bills (networkworld.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Network World: Some 2.7 million ATT customers will share $88 million in compensation for having had unauthorized third-party charges added to their mobile bills, the Federal Trade Commission announced this morning. The latest shot in the federal government's years-long battle against such abuses, these refunds will represent the most money ever recouped by victims of what is known as "mobile cramming," according to the FTC. From an FTC press release: "Through the FTC's refund program, nearly 2.5 million current ATT customers will receive a credit on their bill within the next 75 days, and more than 300,000 former customers will receive a check. The average refund amount is $31. [...] According to the FTC's complaint, ATT placed unauthorized third-party charges on its customers' phone bills, usually in amounts of $9.99 per month, for ringtones and text message subscriptions containing love tips, horoscopes, and 'fun facts.' The FTC alleged that ATT kept at least 35 percent of the charges it imposed on its customers." The matter with ATT was originally made public in 2014 and also involved two companies that actually applied the unauthorized charges, Tatto and Acquinity.
When will we start cracking down and throwing some CEO's in prison for theft for these sorts of practices? Instead they get to walk away with a declaration of no guilt, write off the payback and go on about their business: figuring out the next scam.
It must be pretty cool to be in a position where you can commit fraud against ~2.8million people, sit on the proceeds for several years; and then settle the whole matter for 'compensation' that, at worst, might wipe out your original profits on the fraud.
Not quite as good as impunity; but perhaps an even better mockery of the perception of 'justice', since the whole process gets to play out as a pitiful farce, rather than just being ignored.
Incidentally, why is it that, given the American propensity for a good spree killing, you never hear about unpleasant things happening to the people behind schemes like this? Occasionally somebody shoots up their workplace and kills an immediate supervisor or the like; but nobody ever seems to go any higher up the food chain.