Lawsuit Claims AT&T Overcharges On Data Plans

Is AT&T billing customers for data they didn't use? That's exactly what a recently filed lawsuit accuses the company of doing.

Patrick Hendricks, an AT&T customer using an iPhone, hired an independent consulting firm which determined that the company's bills "systematically overstate web server traffic by 7% to 14%" with that percentage sometimes ballooning to 300%.

"AT&T's billing system for iPhone and iPad data transactions is like a rigged gas pump that charges for a full gallon when it pumps only nine-tenths of a gallon into your car's tank," the complaint said.

The suit also accuses AT&T of fabricating data usage that never occurred. The consulting firm purchased a brand-new iPhone, disabled all push notification and location services, added no apps, or email, and discovered that after 10 days, AT&T still charged the phone for 2.2MB of data transfers.

"Many of these charges were phantom data transactions that never happened or were never initiated or experienced by Mr. Hendricks," the lawsuit said.

Hendricks' complaint charges AT&T with five counts, which include unjust enrichment, unfair business practices and violating the federal law that prohibits "unjust and unreasonable" telecommunication charges. He has asked for class-action status on the suit, which would open it up to the millions of iPhone and other smartphone users currently on one of the company's data plans.

Hendricks is on AT&T's $15-per-month data plan, for 200MB each month, which requires payments of $15 dollars for each 200MB he goes over his plan. The plan is one of the two options AT&T unveiled after getting rid of its unlimited data plan.

A spokesman for AT&T defended the company. "We have only recently learned of the complaint, but I can tell you that we intend to defend ourselves vigorously. Transparent and accurate billing is a top priority for AT&T," he said.

Comments

[NJProgressiveIndie]

07:05 AM on 03/15/2011

Switch to Credo. AT

[Lynne Black]

11:59 AM on 03/14/2011

Get a droid 2.2 phone for under $150 and a month to month contract with Virgin, you get unlimited text and data on all plans.. $25 for 300 minutes, $40 for 1200 minutes, $60 for unlimited. With Virgin, Boost, and several others offering no contract plans with no caps on data it simply doesn't make sense to play the game with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint.

[SaneThoughts]

06:06 AM on 02/04/2011

Stupid lawsuit! In the example given makes no sense. The iPhone everyone loves uses data in the background. For example, when you have a new voicemail the message waiting indicator is data sent to your phone through visual voicemail. There are other functions that Apple designed into the phone that use data also. That's why data plans are required for smartphones. If you didn't have a data plan and paid the data pay per use rate is would be far more expensive. The iPhone is useless without data. And just because you didn't get any new email doesn't mean that phone isn't sending data to check for new email. Stupid people using smartphones is the real problem.

[Ace23]

02:58 PM on 02/17/2011

what does the statement where they got a brand spanking new phone, disable everything and let it sit in the corner for 10 days and yet still charged by at&t for 2.2 Mb doesnt make sense to you?

what doesnt make sense is the statement from the AT&T spokesman that they just recently received this type of complain even though this has been an old issue and have been topic of hundreds of forum threads specially when they started offering the 200Mb /$15 where people started watching their data usage.

/see data transfer all the time (up to 70Mb) on my iPhone @ 3AM where I know I am sound asleep.

[TYRANNASAURUS]

11:35 AM on 02/02/2011

ATT is a scam that is legal.....I dumped them after I found they were screwing me with a Broadband that was no faster than dial up....while charging me broadband prices.

[enderM]

02:56 PM on 02/03/2011

faved faved and faved. EXACTLY! i am in the same boat....at&t's answer is to up service to a more expensive plan for "faster" service.....which is NEVER faster.
simply put....AT&T s.u.c.k.s.

[SaneThoughts]

06:13 AM on 02/04/2011

Nonsense! You don't up you plan to get faster service. You up you plan because you cant control your usage with the plan you have and need a more cost effective plan based on your usage. Plans are based on quantity you use and have nothing to do with speed.

[conservicide]

06:08 AM on 02/02/2011

Boycott AT&T, just because they succk!

[SaneThoughts]

06:09 AM on 02/04/2011

I guess you forgot about the lawsuit Verizon just settled for padding bills with bogus data charges. To single out one carrier is nonsense.

[conservicide]

11:28 AM on 02/06/2011

That one company succks
does not make another succk any less.
AT&T succks.

[maxfax]

12:25 AM on 02/02/2011

Read the headlines "AT&T profits driven by iPhone" "profits up 25%"  no wonder!

[bfreeman42]

11:34 PM on 02/01/2011

virtually all call records and billing in the U.S. are done for the phone companies by Amdocs Ltd., an Israeli-based private elecommunications company.
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/phones_israel.htm

[CaroleK1970]

10:50 PM on 02/01/2011

AT&T is deceptive and greedy, I am happy to hear about this class action lawsuit

[conservicide]

10:38 PM on 02/01/2011

AT&T is a crooked crooked company.

[Harvee Wallbanger]

10:25 PM on 02/01/2011

Yea, AT&T screwed the pooch over with their DSL too. People that ordered and were paying $45 per month for high speed were only getting the low $20/month speed. The class action suit made AT&T pay back $3/month to those people. I'm sure this will be similar if it goes anywhere at all. AT&T owns the courts and they are always probing the legal limits when they are not flat out breaking the law.

[BoFo]

10:18 PM on 02/01/2011

That's just the tip of the iceberg. For more, here's a great source of information:

http://www.teletruth.org/

[Aj Sol]

09:43 PM on 02/01/2011

I have been a customer with ATT for over 15 years. I have 3 lines, one being a ghost line that is never used. They charge the ghost line phone which is just a SIM card sitting in a drawer in my kitchen regularly for usage. I learned long ago to check my ATT bill every month because they are just that shady. These are the things you must put up with for an iPhone.

[urnumbersix]

09:38 PM on 02/01/2011

"Unjust Enrichment?!?"

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Back in my time, we called it STEALING, FRAUD, and there were arrests, prosecutions, adjudications and sentencing for it....

But back then, there was also a foot of snow to contend with in Winter.
"Nothing" like nowadays!

Now, Get off My Lawn!

[Artamentous]

10:01 PM on 02/01/2011

Back in your time? What planet did you live on? At what point in America history did corporations not get away with these things? Certainly in my reality they always did.

[Icke Icke]

09:17 PM on 02/01/2011

Hurry before SCOTUS takes away the common mans ability to sue via class action suits. You know, that way no one will bother to hold companies accountable for $50 screw jobs because it would cost more to sue than to just get robbed.

[bynddrvn5]

09:01 PM on 02/01/2011

Why would you trust a company that contributed every dollar it could to the Tea Party?

http://www.examiner.com/liberal-in-san-diego/at-t-contributes-money-to-tea-party