Remember CEO John Legere’s epic rant about AT&T and Verizon ‘raping’ you just a couple weeks ago? (Watch: http://bit.ly/TEgTks) Turns out T-Mobile has been guilty of this for years. Cenk Uygur (http://www.twitter.com/cenkuygur) and Ana Kasparian (http://www.twitter.com/AnaKasparian) break it down on The Young Turks.
“The FTC has charged T-Mobile with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars of their customers’ money by billing them for services they didn’t sign up for. Okay. So. Which T-Mobile executive will be going to jail?
I mean, this seems like a fairly straightforward case, right? This wasn’t an accident. This was purposeful theft, on a grand scale. The FTC says that T-Mobile routinely placed charges on customers’ bills for ‘premium’ text messaging services ‘that, in many cases, were bogus charges that were never authorized by its customers.’ It was a classic crooked kickback scheme:
The FTC alleges that T-Mobile received anywhere from 35 to 40 percent of the total amount charged to consumers for subscriptions for content such as flirting tips, horoscope information or celebrity gossip that typically cost $9.99 per month. According to the FTC’s complaint, T-Mobile in some cases continued to bill its customers for these services offered by scammers years after becoming aware of signs that the charges were fraudulent.” *
*Read more here from http://gawker.com/so-whos-going-to-jail-for-t-mobiles-crimes-1599027448
Comments
I must start saying I am a huge supporter of what the Young Turks does as a media outlet. I have agreed with just about everything the show has done since its inception. That being said, I am quite disappointed with this segment. As a huge supporter of T-Mobile I have a lot of pride in the strides they have taken to shake up the mobile industry, No contracts, overages, and being the first company to allow an upgrade without paying outrageous sums or waiting 2 years are all things the big name mobile industry should have been doing already. When it comes to these “hidden charges” the accusations are absolutely ridiculous. It is true the services associated with the premium charges are sometimes signed up through text message (I know I have received one) but you would have to be absolutely clueless if you didn’t know you were signing up for them. You have to confirm multiple times tapping I agree and acknowledging the charges. Would we blame Netflix for scamming us if we signed up for the free trial and then didn’t cancel? There is a tv service as one of the premium charges and my significant other signed up for the free trial, She realized that it was still working after the month so she called customer service and they refunded it immediately for her. I just don’t understand how T-Mobile are considered scammers when every other carrier offers similar services. Should they be done away with and the billing be charged to credit cards? Probably. Is it a scam? No, If these charges are a scam then Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and thousands of other companies are guilty as well.