AT&T Taken to Court over “Rigged Gas Pump” Data Billing
Another public relations debacle for AT&T has emerged this week, with pricing at the core of the wireless service provider’s latest issues. Alameda County, Calif. -based Patrick Hendricks subscribed to AT&T’s $15/200MB/month limited data plan for the iPhone, but after several alleged overcharges for regular and phantom usage, Hendricks sued the company. The lawsuit seeks both federal and California class-action status, and an independent consulting firm was hired to field-test Hendricks’ claims, PCMag reports
“He said that the consulting firm purchased an iPhone from the AT&T store, turned off push notifications, location services, closed all apps, and did not enable e-mail but was still charged for 35 data transactions over a 10-day period for a total of 2,292KB of usage.”
The firm also discovered “AT&T consistently overcharges its customers for data by 7 to 14 percent”. However minor these alleged overbilling may seem from the individual customer perspective, they (may) have a huge effect on AT&T’s bottom line. MSNC also reports that the lawsuit claims AT&T’s billing software it incorrectly logs the time and date of data connections, but eventually only AT&T customer know the unlikable truth. Either way, this case is a ticking bomb inching its way towards seriously damaging AT&T’s public image and worsening fears about the firm losing iPhone business to Verizon.
Coincidentally, the FCC deemed Verizon has to pay $25 billion to settle complaints regarding incorrect data charges in October.
All and all, mobile had its fair share of updates lately. Facebook’s first priorities for this year are mobile and HTML5, and AT&T recently hit the 11 million embedded and connected devices mark.
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