T-Mobile Accused Of Making A Ton Of Cash From Bogus Charges On Phone Bills

This sample provided by the FTC demonstrates how T-Mobile allegedly hid these charges from consumers.

T-Mobile, a company that has tried to position itself as being consumer-friendly, has been accused by federal regulators of being anything but friendly. The self-described “Un-carrier” has been accused in federal court of making hundreds of millions of dollars off of so-called “premium” text-messaging subscriptions that were often never requested by subscribers.

According to the complaint [PDF] filed by the Federal Trade Commission in a U.S. District Court in Seattle, T-Mobile allowed third parties to participate in what’s known as “bill cramming,” the placing of often-questionable charges for premium services on a phone customers’ bill.

The FTC alleges that T-Mobile received anywhere from 35-40% of the total amount charged to consumers for subscriptions (mostly $9.99/month) for things like “flirting tips, horoscope information or celebrity gossip.”

Making matters worse, the government claims that T-Mobile sometimes continued to bill customers for these services even after being made aware that they were being operated by scammers.

The FTC says that the demand for refunds on these charges were high, with sometimes as many as 40% of affected users requesting refunds for the charges. If that wasn’t enough of an indicator that the charges were fake, then the FTC says that industry auditor alerts, law enforcement actions, and news articles should have been a sign to stop collecting these for the scam artists.

Another thing that makes the cramming all the more serious is T-Mobile’s large numbers of prepaid customers who don’t receive bills for their monthly service but who were nonetheless being charged for these unwanted services.

“When an unauthorized charge for $9.99 has been charged to these consumers’ accounts, [T-Mobile] has deducted $9.99 worth of minutes from their available balance,” reads the complaint, saying that the phone company “typically has provided no notice to the consumer of the charge.”

by Chris Morran via Consumerist