Woman sues for $5K data bill; AT&T says 'read TOS'
Summary: A woman who received a $5,077 bill from AT&T for data charges on her Netbook is suing the wireless carrier and RadioShack for fraud, reports Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica.The lawsuit alleges that the two companies conspired to promote a netbook plus data deal that deliberately misled customers and tricked them into paying thousands of dollars per month for service.
A woman who received a $5,077 bill from AT&T for data charges on her Netbook is suing the wireless carrier and RadioShack for fraud, reports Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica.
The lawsuit alleges that the two companies conspired to promote a netbook plus data deal that deliberately misled customers and tricked them into paying thousands of dollars per month for service.
Here's Parks' story:
Parks purchased a netbook from RadioShack in December of 2008 after the electronics retailer began advertising a heavily subsidized netbook deal: for $99.99 and a two-year AT&T contract, customers could buy a netbook with AT&T's DataConnect plan, allowing them to get online from anywhere. The DataConnect service costs roughly $60 per month before the usual taxes and fees.
According to Parks' complaint, she was warned by RadioShack that her first AT&T bill might be a bit more than expected due to a $36 activation fee, a month's worth of service billed in advance, and prorated charges from when she signed up. She was not, however warned that any Internet data usage over 5GB would result in "astronomical additional charges running into the thousands of dollars." She claims that the Customer Service Summary she received states that additional charges apply, but it was impossible for consumers to determine what those charges would be.
Astronomical, of course, to the tune of $5,077 -- or enough green to buy nearly 17 (that's not a typo) Acer Aspire One netbooks from Radioshack.
Cheng details AT&T's defense:
As usual for these types of cases, AT&T indicates that some of the accusations are a bit excessive and says it goes to great lengths to make sure customers know the details of additional charges. "We're reviewing the suit and don’t have a comment on it at this time," AT&T spokesperson Seth Bloom told Ars. "But I can tell you that we go to considerable lengths to inform customers of the limits involved in these plans. We display the plan usage limits and overage rates on our collateral, terms and conditions, and on att.com, And customers can check their usage using myWireless Account or by using the usage monitoring capability on the AT&T Communications Manager application."
Ignorance clearly does not lead to bliss. Still -- this all goes back to a question I asked back in February: Would you buy a wireless plan with your Netbook?
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Talkback
It's about time
Exactly right
But six months later T-mobile introduced a plan option that--surprise!--allowed the user to specify a limit. For a fee, of course.
Anyway, I have little doubt that the woman in the story won't have to pay, given the negative publicity the company now has.
There are meters on the phone though
With internet usage AFAIK there are no meters to track how close you are to your limit. I think this would be the lady's best defense. How can you have a cap if you can't even prove to the customer (and the courts) how much has been downloaded?
I believe I rember seeing the Verizon Network Manager
Read your T-Mobile bill.
As per minute usage for Wireless Internet access, this is metered. I have a modem that I use when not near a WiFi hotspot or WAP, this has a meter on it for usage (how many MB for the month). One can look at that (probably with other services, I also have Verizon) and see how much data they are sending/receiving. This allows one to know when they are hitting the contractual limits and when overages will start.
Granted, I have no idea (based upon reading the terms of the AT&T contract) what the overages are or what plan she had. I would presume that there was some sort of metering for the access or it could be acquired from AT&T, as they did for iPhone users (one received several pages of printed logs of where they had gone on-line, rather than an on-line record, was in the news about a year ago).
Then you'll love AT&T
AT&T account.
On either account when you log-on via the
internet to check your usage (data), the data
may be off from a couple of hours to a couple
of weeks.
Yes..... weeks.
To help with that the site has this nifty
little disclaimer:
[b]
"Important: There are delays in reporting and
processing call or data records. It may take up
to two to five days for usage on the AT&T
wireless network to show up in any Voice & Data
Usage category. Additional delays may occur due
to technical difficulties. Further delays may
apply to roaming usage, which is based on call
records received from other carriers. A delay
of a minimum of two to ten days for roaming
usage is usual and up to 60 days or longer is
possible. During the time your invoice is being
processed, you may not be able to view your
usage or you may experience additional delays
in reporting of usage. Minutes used in excess
of those available will either be deducted from
available Rollover or from another category of
usage for which that call is eligible. Minutes
"Used" may reflect airtime for unanswered voice
mails, administrative calls, and other calls
for which you are not billed. Data usage
information (including text messages, picture
messages & Internet usage) may also be delayed
based on the same reasons mentioned above.
This usage information is only an estimate and,
regardless of what is shown, your next invoice
will be determined by the information contained
in our billing system, not this usage
information. Hawaii Text/Data Users: The time
stamp for your unbilled data usage may be off
by up to 4 hours."
[/b]
Sweet stuff.
Why two accounts? Mine is corporate hers is
family.....
Re: T-Mobile
AMEN!
It **IS** Criminal the way the Government allows Wireless Companies to effectively bait and switch and make you liable without allowing you to know in advance.
Yes, in my case, Verizon allows a 30 day escape clause.
But, as I pointed out over, and over, and over that would be **WAY** before I ever got my first bill!
AT&T should be ashamed of themselves!!!!
Saying there will be "additional charges" without specifying what they are at at what rate they accrue **IS** Criminal and I sincerely hope this lady gets both a sympathetic judge and a sympathetic jury!!!
The east they could have done is sent text messages every x MB over warning a newbie customer they they were accruing charges at x rate per xMB!!!!!!!!!!
Mike Sr.
Totally Agree!
When are our regulatory bodies going to say enough is enough and start setting some reasonable limitations on this greedy practice?
We don't pay more for digital cable if we watch it 24/7 versus 1 hr a month, why should we pay vastly more for our computers being fed data 24/7? It's all digital streams fed to a device. I would love to see a future where all data plans are unlimited data for a flat monthly fee. Then these cases would disappear and we could all just use our devices without constantly watching the clock.
AT&T is responsible. They should have a cut-off of say $100 extra, at which
NOBODY would be willing to pay 5,000 a month for data service, and AT&T should understand that very well.
The problem with that
Which is why the cap should be at $0 overage to prompt the phone call. And a meter should be available to all so they can monitor their usage well in advance of the problem.
Still, at least 1 or 2 hundred is payable, and is much better than NO limit
...problem solved: let the customer decide
T solve that problem simply explain to the customer UP FRONT about the overage charges and force them to choose a "cutoff" amount in advance, so they know what they are getting into. It's a simple fix but one that does not reap the profits, so you'll never see it happen.
re: the problem with that
Better Idea: Bars
breaching the limit. Most people would understand the imagery right
away.
Edward Rapka
There is no cutoff, just overages.
It is your responsibility to monitor yourself and abide by the contract or go to the next plan tier. These records can often be checked on-line.
re:There is no cutoff, just overages.
Should be capped, but not all info is indicated
It is likely teething problems with a new plan.
You are right though, I doubt she will have to pay for it, it is way too easy to believe that she wasn't completely informed during the sale and I suspect she just got the wrong person at corporate stonewalling her.
TripleII
RE: Woman sues for $5K data bill; AT
If AT&T really wanted to cover themselves they would name the plan "The 5Gb Plan". Say in big letters that you only have 5 GB for the $60 USD. "This" would be replaced with the real dollar amount.
The sad thing is Internet content is on a run away train. Movie and T.V. feeds require a massive amount of bandwidth. Most Telcos are cashing in by only offering data width sizes that would have be just "o.k." in the early 1990s.
I used to be someone who said, "Let the buyer beware!" but lately I have run into so many lying sales reps and marketers that I am finding it hard to blame people for getting into trouble. It really sucks when only someone with a PhD in economic law can untangle what should be a simple economic transaction.
It kind of sucks when you have to hire a lawyer to represent you just to buy a data plane from a phone company but you do nowadays.