

FTC Alleges T-Mobile Crammed Bogus Charges onto Customers’ Phone Bills - pshin45
http://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2014/07/ftc-alleges-t-mobile-crammed-bogus-charges-customers-phone-bills

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com2kid
I fail to see how it is T-Mobile's job to decide what services a user "really
meant to subscribe to".

If I want horoscopes sent to me each morning and I'm willing to pay
$9.99/month, it isn't T-Mobile's job to determine that I should be protected
from myself.

That said, their website UI around billing is horrible.

~~~
dmdeller
It's not just billing that is the problem. These third-party services send the
carrier a list of numbers to subscribe, and the carrier simply takes them at
their word that those numbers have opted in, without having any idea whether
this is actually true.

Technically, the third-party could simply make up a list of random (but valid)
numbers, send them to the carrier to subscribe, and the carrier would do it.
There is no technical means in place to stop this. The only thing that (in
theory) stops it is the carrier noticing the high number of customer
complaints and deciding not to do business with the third-party any more - a
clear conflict of interest, since deciding to ignore the problem benefits the
carrier financially.

What many of these services do is toe the line, by enticing a customer to give
up their phone number for some completely unrelated reason, and bury somewhere
in the fine print that they are signing up for a recurring charge on their
phone bill. The customer has absolutely no idea that this is happening unless
they read through pages of legalese. This way, the charges are technically
opt-in, even though no reasonable person would describe it as such.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramming_(fraud)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cramming_\(fraud\))

The brain-dead simple technical solution for this is for the carrier to check
with the customer before adding a charge to the bill. There is no reason not
to do this.

Or maybe just get rid of for-pay SMS services altogether. In the age of
smartphones they are useless.

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DanBC
The UK has a regulator that would go after these companies. Any telco that was
seen to be coluding with these dodgy companies (even by just ignoring some
complaints) would face heavy duty regulation and large fines.

~~~
makomk
The UK regulator in this area has a reputation for failing to act on
complaints and being too close to the industry it's meant to be regulating, as
I recall.

Edit: We've had similar problems in the UK for years:
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17489393](http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/17489393)
I don't think most of the customers scammed ever saw refunds, and PhonepayPlus
(the industry regulator's) fines are basically slaps on the wrist that are far
less than the scammers' profits. Don't think there's ever been any equivalent
of the FTC lawsuit over here.

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dcg
Reaction from T-Mobile USA: [http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/our-reaction-
to-the-ftc-la...](http://newsroom.t-mobile.com/news/our-reaction-to-the-ftc-
lawsuit.htm)

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emgeee
Of course this would happen just as T-Mobile is succeeding in branding itself
as actually being reasonable...

I'll be interested to see how they handle PR

~~~
r00fus
Is it possible the other carriers are pulling the FTC's strings?

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whoopdedo
Is it not more likely that there have been more complaints regarding T-Mobile
because their customers are more apt to notice these things? Squeaky wheels
get greased and the people who have signed up for T-Mobile are all holding oil
cans. After all, they switched under the assumption that they could get away
from hidden charges.

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ps4fanboy
Imagine if app developers told apple which customers had downloaded and
purchased their apps using only the customers phone number and apple just
billed them.

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fatjokes
Still cheaper than all the other carriers.

