Better Business Bureau Urges Consumers to Check Wireless Bills

Please be on the lookout for unauthorized charges on your wireless bill. The Connecticut Better Business Bureau is alerting consumers to a new text messaging and robocalling scheme.

Cramming Scheme
This week the Connecticut Better Business Bureau issued a press release urging consumers to carefully check their wireless bills for unexplained charges, after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) cited several defendants involved in what calls a massive spam text message and robocalling scheme.

The FTC says some charges were placed on consumers’ wireless bills (cramming) through major carriers for services that were never ordered and bombarded them with phony offers of “free” merchandise. All three companies named in an FTC action are required to pay $10 million dollars to settle the charges.

In related efforts to stop cramming, the FTC alleges two of the nation’s largest carriers, T-Mobile and AT&T Mobility, made hundreds of millions of dollars by placing charges for premium SMS (text) subscriptions that in many cases “were never authorized by its customers.”

AT&T Unlimited Data Plan Complaint
In a separate action, the FTC has filed a complaint against AT&T alleging the company misled millions of smartphone customers who signed up for “unlimited data plans.”

The federal agency says, despite “unequivocal promises of unlimited data,” it began throttling (reducing data speed) by between 80 and 90 percent. The FTC described the throttling program as “severe,” and said it reduced data speeds after consumers used as little as two gigabytes of data.

Better Business Bureau urges consumers to carefully review their wireless bills for any increased service charges, or charges for unordered services, and contact their provider to have the charges explained and/or removed.

Consumers may file a claim against AT&T for unauthorized cramming charges through the FTC website at www.ftc.gov.

For more information, visit the CT Better Business Bureau website: http://www.bbb.org/connecticut/news-events/news-releases/2014/10/connecticut-bbb-recommends-consumers-be-on-the-lookout-for-unauthorized-charges-on-wireless-bills/.