T-Mobile agrees to pay out $90 million over mobile cramming

News
By Michael Rougeau
published

T-Mobile reaches settlement

T-Mobile
T-Mobile can't win 'em all it seems

T-Mobile has settled with the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over a case that alleged it had "crammed" unauthorized charges onto subscribers' bills.

T-Mobile has agreed to pay $90 million out to customers who were charged as much as $10 per month for unsolicited horoscopes, jokes and other nonsense.

The settlement dictates that T-Mobile spends at least $67.5 million on a program for consumer refunds, $18 million to state governments and $4.5 million to the US treasury.

Current and former T-Mobile subscribers who think they may have been affected can head to tmobilerefund.com to request a refund once the site is up and running.

Who's next?

"Yet again we are faced with a phone company that profited while its customers were fleeced by third parties who placed unauthorized charges on their phone bills," FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Travis LeBlanc said in a rather self-congratulatory statement. "And once again the FCC is standing up for those customers."

"Today's settlement holds T-Mobile responsible for its billing practices and puts money directly back into the pockets of American consumers," he continued.

The case against T-Mobile began over the summer, and it's nice to see it come to a swift end, but it's just one of numerous identical suits against carriers in the US.

AT&T reached a similar settlement with the FTC (though for an even larger $105 million) in October, while the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau took Sprint to task for cramming this week.

Via GigaOM

Michael Rougeau
Michael Rougeau

Michael Rougeau is a former freelance news writer for TechRadar. Studying at Goldsmiths, University of London, and Northeastern University, Michael has bylines at Kotaku, 1UP, G4, Complex Magazine, Digital Trends, GamesRadar, GameSpot, IFC, Animal New York, @Gamer, Inside the Magic, Comic Book Resources, Zap2It, TabTimes, GameZone, Cheat Code Central, Gameshark, Gameranx, The Industry, Debonair Mag, Kombo, and others.

Micheal also spent time as the Games Editor for Playboy.com, and was the managing editor at GameSpot before becoming an Animal Care Manager for Wags and Walks.