Saturday, December 27, 2014

Slow Saturday Special: T-Mobile Thievery

And yet their television advertisements are so wonderful(?).

"T-Mobile paying out at least $90m over ‘cramming’ charges" by Marcy Gordon, Associated Press  December 19, 2014

WASHINGTON — T-Mobile US will pay at least $90 million, mostly in refunds, for billing customers for cellphone text services they didn’t order, under a settlement with federal regulators.

The Federal Trade Commission disclosed the agreement Friday with T-Mobile over billing for unauthorized charges, a practice known as ‘‘cramming.’’ T-Mobile, the fourth-largest US cellphone company, is paying at least $67.5 million in refunds to affected customers plus $18 million in fines to the 50 states and the District of Columbia, and $4.5 million in fines to the Federal Communications Commission. 

Government gets a kickback in the $cheme, huh?

The FTC sued T-Mobile in July, accusing it of billing customers for subscriptions to text services like $9.99-per-month horoscopes, ringtones, or celebrity gossip updates they didn’t want or authorize.

A T-Mobile spokeswoman said the company had no immediate comment on the deal.

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I'll tell you where I would like them to cram it.

Look who they gave the records to.

You can always switch to Sprint I suppose:

"Sprint accused of billing for unwanted services

WASHINGTON — Federal regulators are accusing Sprint Corp. of illegally billing its wireless customers hundreds of millions of dollars in charges for text message alerts and other services that they didn’t order. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Wednesday that it has sued the third-largest US cellphone carrier over billing for unauthorized charges, a practice known as ‘‘cramming.’’ The agency said Sprint failed to oversee third-party companies, allowing illegal charges to be put on customers’ bills. Over a decade, consumers were charged for items like cellphone ringtones or horoscope text messages they didn’t want and didn’t sign up for, the regulators said. Sprint, based in Overland Park, Kan., disputed the government’s allegations, saying in a statement that ‘‘We strongly disagree with [the bureau’s] characterization of our business practices’’ and invited customers to contact the company if they thought they had been charged improperly. The bureau said the unauthorized charges ranged from one-time fees of 99 cents to $4.99, to monthly subscriptions costing $9.99 a month."

So many crank calls here in AmeriKa!