[Old_Mil]

How T-Mobile Made Hundreds Of Millions Charging Customers For "Bogus" Services | Zero Hedge

Check your bill...

Posted via CB10

[Dunt Dunt Dunt]

Saw a new class at our local collage - it's on understanding you phone bill.... it's a two year course.

[bungaboy]

Saw a new class at our local collage - it's on understanding you phone bill.... it's a two year course.

The FTC further alleges that because of the complexity of T-Mobile customer bills (which may be over 50 pages long), these charges were hidden and customers weren't able to easily sort out the various "Premium Service" charges. According to the complaint, the information would be listed there in an abbreviated form that did not explain that the charge was for a recurring third-party subscription supposedly authorized by the consumer.

I guess it would be a 2 year course for you as you imply.

[lactose]

With their newer plans, I can fire them if they misbehave. No two year contract. I will have to pay off any balances on phone purchases though.

[raino]

In early June, they announced a premium SMS charge refund program. Somebody probably tipped them off early.

Maybe John Legere should write a blog about this Uncarrier move.

[jlinc]

They announced that refund policy because they knew this was coming. They don't expect most people to be able to prove they were stolen from.

Posted via CB10

[grover5]

These charges have ended up on our bills twice in the last three years. Each time TMO contacted us to let us know and then removed all the charges in full. This story is bunk.

[Old_Mil]

UN carrier,UN ethical

Posted via CB10

[grover5]

I think UN true might be more accurate.

[raino]

I think UN true might be more accurate.

Which part do you think is untrue?

[grover5]

Which part do you think is untrue?

Look at my post above. They never allowed these charges to stay on my bill and warned me when they were on there. Given they are also the only cell company to promise never to allow these charges to be applied I guess my question is what compels people to think this is true? My guess would be the anger about the BB dispute. I personally buy my BB outright anyway and have no interest in being forced to buy my cell from my cell service provider. Anyway it has been my experience that TMO has done the opposite of what this report suggests and given their policy to not allow this activity and their immediate public denouncement of this report, I believe it to be untrue.

[raino]

Look at my post above. They never allowed these charges to stay on my bill and warned me when they were on there. Given they are also the only cell company to promise never to allow these charges to be applied I guess my question is what compels people to think this is true? My guess would be the anger about the BB dispute. I personally buy my BB outright anyway and have no interest in being forced to buy my cell from my cell service provider. Anyway it has been my experience that TMO has done the opposite of what this report suggests and given their policy to not allow this activity and their immediate public denouncement of this report, I believe it to be untrue.

They refunded at best 40% of the people, which means 60% or more who got crammed had to pay for the charges. That means more often than not, they were looking the other way, despite (according to the FTC,) the writing being on the wall as to what was going on.

And it's certainly true people would get crammed; why TMO is getting investigated is the real question. My guess is that they have they have the worst refunded to charged ratio of customers. Maybe AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint are better at taking off cramming charges. Either that, or they got the most complaints (i.e. evidence on the basis of which the FTC can move ahead--certainly not a handful of people.)

And read Legere's statement in response to this lawsuit. In his typical BS style he spouts off, says they "launched a proactive program to provide full refunds for any customer that feels that they were charged for something they did not want." How is something you the customer have to ask for "proactive?" Did you proactively asked to be billed for cramming? Proactive would have been refunding the 100% of people who got crammed their money, not only the ones willing to play the hold-and-transfer games with CS reps, not to mention the time spent in figuring out what these charges amount to. You can't tell me that upon an internal audit, TMO can't figure out who these affected customers are.

[Josh S1]

How can u have a bill that is 50 pages?!!

Posted via CB10

[grover5]

How can u have a bill that is 50 pages?!!

Posted via CB10

My usual bill is one page unless you're including every phone call record.

[grover5]

They refunded at best 40% of the people, which means 60% or more who got crammed had to pay for the charges. That means more often than not, they were looking the other way, despite (according to the FTC,) the writing being on the wall as to what was going on.

And it's certainly true people would get crammed; why TMO is getting investigated is the real question. My guess is that they have they have the worst refunded to charged ratio of customers. Maybe AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint are better at taking off cramming charges. Either that, or they got the most complaints (i.e. evidence on the basis of which the FTC can move ahead--certainly not a handful of people.)

And read Legere's statement in response to this lawsuit. In his typical BS style he spouts off, says they "launched a proactive program to provide full refunds for any customer that feels that they were charged for something they did not want." How is something you the customer have to ask for "proactive?" Did you proactively asked to be billed for cramming? Proactive would have been refunding the 100% of people who got crammed their money, not only the ones willing to play the hold-and-transfer games with CS reps, not to mention the time spent in figuring out what these charges amount to. You can't tell me that upon an internal audit, TMO can't figure out who these affected customers are.

Anything is possible but I have to go on my personal experience as a TMO customer for a very long time. They always do what's right for me and never allowed these types of charges to stay on my bill.

[gariac]

Again, I remind you, you don't need SMS. I'd you have imap email, it is both push and lightning fast. Messages show up on my phone before my computer sees them. You also have BBM.

SMS is spoof-able and hackable. You can be silent pinged.

I block all SMS at the carrier, other than 3 digit SMS, which comes from T-Mobile.

Call TMobile and block 5,6, and 10 digit SMS.

I really wish bb10 had the firewall like the older OS.


Posted via CB10

[Anovascular]

Again, I remind you, you don't need SMS. I'd you have imap email, it is both push and lightning fast. Messages show up on my phone before my computer sees them. You also have BBM.

SMS is spoof-able and hackable. You can be silent pinged.

I block all SMS at the carrier, other than 3 digit SMS, which comes from T-Mobile.

Call TMobile and block 5,6, and 10 digit SMS.

I really wish bb10 had the firewall like the older OS.


Posted via CB10

Gariac, I'm curious about your SMS setup. How do other people text you? What do you tell them to do since you do not receive SMS from ten-digit numbers?

Motorola V3xx -> Nokia E63 -> Nokia N900 -> Nokia N9 -> BlackBerry Z10

[eyesopen1111]

I'm glad there's a crackdown on those sketchy, worthless SMS businesses, though I need more information on how directly involved T-Mo was. These are third party separate businesses, so I wonder why not go after them directly? Perhaps T-Mobile is just a bigger, easier target for regulators.

I could easily see this drama being the result of Verizon/AT&T's Governmental Affairs department, which lobbies government and hires retiring regulators to get favors, like they did with legislation allowing carrier locking of smartphones, etc.

Z-30/STA 100-5/10.3.0.700+.296/T-Mobile USA

[raino]

I could easily see this drama being the result of Verizon/AT&T's Governmental Affairs department, which lobbies government and hires retiring regulators to get favors, like they did with legislation allowing carrier locking of smartphones, etc.

I don't think lobbying did this. I can see lobbying getting results in their favor, but having an investigation launched against a competitor? Plus, the FTC has to be the least "lobbyable" government agency, given that they'd be the first to be suspected of getting lobbied due to the nature of their work.

Finally, the FCC is where the Big Telecom as a whole arguably has an in, not the FTC.

[modifier]

I don't think lobbying did this. I can see lobbying getting results in their favor, but having an investigation launched against a competitor? Plus, the FTC has to be the least "lobbyable" government agency, given that they'd be the first to be suspected of getting lobbied due to the nature of their work.

Finally, the FCC is where the Big Telecom as a whole arguably has an in, not the FTC.

You're kidding yourself if you don't think the FTC gets lobbied. Unless you have definitive evidence to the contrary, lobbying is certainly one possibility.

http://lobbydata.com/Directory/Agenc...Commission-Ftc

I'm not taking a side either way. I just wouldn't rule anything out.

[posted via CB10]

[raino]

You're kidding yourself if you don't think the FTC gets lobbied. Unless you have definitive evidence to the contrary, lobbying is certainly one possibility.

Federal Trade Commission Ftc Lobbyists & Lobbying Firms

I'm not taking a side either way. I just wouldn't rule anything out.

Thanks. I wasn't suggesting that the FTC doesn't get approached by lobbies, just theorizing that they probably act the least in favor of these lobbies, given how much scrutiny they must be under (right next to the SEC.) Plus, there's no telecom industry/lobby guy high up in the FTC that I'm aware of, unlike at the FCC (Tom Wheeler.)

Plus, launching an investigation (as opposed to "regular" stuff like managing auctions in favor of Big 2, archaic unlocking rules, etc.) seems way too extreme to have been a result of lobbying. Can you imagine the consequences if it came to light that TMO was targeted for an industry-wide nuisance solely based on lobbying $$ ?

[gariac]

Again, I remind you, you don't need SMS. I'd you have imap email, it is both push and lightning fast. Messages show up on my phone before my computer sees them. You also have BBM.

SMS is spoof-able and hackable. You can be silent pinged.

I block all SMS at the carrier, other than 3 digit SMS, which comes from T-Mobile.

Call TMobile and block 5,6, and 10 digit SMS.

I really wish bb10 had the firewall like the older OS.


Posted via CB10

I tell people to email me. I have my personal email account light the red led.

When I first got a GSM phone (a StarTac, believe it or not), I was into texting. But when I went to BlackBerry, I just used email. Now getting a prompt reply from the great unwashed (non-Blackberry owners), is an issue.

Once I learned how the terrible security issues of SMS, I'm glad I dumped it years ago. I'm not clairvoyant, but often make good guesses. For instance, I had no idea about silent SMS messages.

Posted via CB10

[gariac]

They refunded at best 40% of the people, which means 60% or more who got crammed had to pay for the charges. That means more often than not, they were looking the other way, despite (according to the FTC,) the writing being on the wall as to what was going on.

And it's certainly true people would get crammed; why TMO is getting investigated is the real question. My guess is that they have they have the worst refunded to charged ratio of customers. Maybe AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint are better at taking off cramming charges. Either that, or they got the most complaints (i.e. evidence on the basis of which the FTC can move ahead--certainly not a handful of people.)

And read Legere's statement in response to this lawsuit. In his typical BS style he spouts off, says they "launched a proactive program to provide full refunds for any customer that feels that they were charged for something they did not want." How is something you the customer have to ask for "proactive?" Did you proactively asked to be billed for cramming? Proactive would have been refunding the 100% of people who got crammed their money, not only the ones willing to play the hold-and-transfer games with CS reps, not to mention the time spent in figuring out what these charges amount to. You can't tell me that upon an internal audit, TMO can't figure out who these affected customers are.

And a certain percentage probably signed up for the services. There will always be moochers.

Regarding fees, take app purchasing for example. I decided to put them on my T-mobile bill rather than set up a credit card. But it is hard to say which scheme is more secure. I run my T-mobile bill through a credit card for the rebate, so I figure any billing problems will be subject to credit card scrutiny. It wouldn't surprise me if the app store got hacked dome day and I got charged for an app I did not buy.

Computer security in general has got worse over the years, if you base it on the number of attacks. Obviously e-commerce had grown greatly, so you would expect more hacks. But I do blame the coders too. Take Apple for example. About half the bug fixes on their last update was for buffer overflows, and their is no way a platform like IOS can claim "legacy code." Apple has 21st century coders making 20th century mistakes. Apple coders truly suck. (goto fail)

But back to the cramming, I doubt T-Mobile would allow this on purpose. It isn't like companies in the past hasven't been caught up in cramming scandals. You lose in the end, and it makes for terrible press.

Posted via CB10

[modifier]

Thanks. I wasn't suggesting that the FTC doesn't get approached by lobbies, just theorizing that they probably act the least in favor of these lobbies, given how much scrutiny they must be under (right next to the SEC.) Plus, there's no telecom industry/lobby guy high up in the FTC that I'm aware of, unlike at the FCC (Tom Wheeler.)

Plus, launching an investigation (as opposed to "regular" stuff like managing auctions in favor of Big 2, archaic unlocking rules, etc.) seems way too extreme to have been a result of lobbying. Can you imagine the consequences if it came to light that TMO was targeted for an industry-wide nuisance solely based on lobbying $$ ?

I don't disagree. I just don't take anything at face value when it comes to stuff like this. Tmo obviously did something to get on the radar. It's just odd that no one else has ever been accused or caught doing the same until now. SMS has been around over 15 years. I had it on analog in 1998. That's a long run for no one to be caught skimming off the tops of bills (SMS or otherwise). I can't recall another carrier being accused of anything similar.

If this ultimately keeps the Sprint Tmo merger from happening or puts Tmo under for some reason, questions wise surely arise. It'll be interesting to see exactly who comes out ahead here -- the customers, the big 2, or someone else.

[posted via CB10]

[Old_Mil]

With regards to not doing this on purpose, desperate companies do desperate things.

Posted via CB10