FTC accuses T-Mobile of knowingly profiting off fraudulent SMS services

The FTC has filed a complaint against T-Mobile regarding those pesky subscription-based “premium SMS services.” According to the complaint, T-Mobile has done quite a few things wrong here. First of all, despite many complaints and refund requests, T-Mobile has done nothing to stop fraudulent charges from these companies and has even profited from it. As much as 40 percent of what is charged by these services could have gone to T-Mobile.

There are also reports of T-Mobile refusing to give full refunds for these charges, giving partial refunds or even claiming that customers have authorized these charges despite there being no proof of this. And thanks to T-Mobile’s poor bill layout, finding fraudulent charges is extremely difficult. The charges are not shown on any summary and have to be found elsewhere in the massive amounts of papers. And in the case of prepaid customers, the charges are taken off of their prepaid cards with no bills to look through.

These complaints are absolutely unproven so far, and will be handled by a court. Until then, we won’t know if T-Mobile is guilty of any wrongdoings. However, these seem like pretty shady business practices with some serious lack of consumer protection. Have you had any experiences with these pesky premium SMS services?

source: androidandme