#Roommates, AT&T recently had to learn a very costly lesson about false advertisement, one that requires the company to cough up millions. After losing a lawsuit, AT&T has been ordered to pay $60 million for misleading customers in a promotion gone wrong.
As reported by @Fox5Atlanta, AT&T has officially been ordered by a federal court to pay a $60 million in a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) over allegations that the company misled millions of customers by charging them for “unlimited” data plans while reducing their data speeds. The ongoing legal battle initially began five years ago with a complaint that was filed back in 2014. The FTC alleged that AT&T failed to adequately inform customers that data speeds would be reduced if they went over a certain amount of data use within a billing cycle.
The practice is known as “throttling” and it significantly slowed online activities such as web browsing and streaming videos. The FTC alleged that AT&T began throttling data speeds as far back as 2011 for unlimited customers after they used only 2 gigabytes of data in a single billing period This misleading practice impacted over 3.5 million customers with some having their data speeds slowed by nearly 90 percent.
The $60 million settlement will be paid out by AT&T through a deposit into a fund that the company will then use to provide partial refunds to both current and also former customers who signed up for unlimited plans before 2011, but were still the victims of the company’s throttling. Additionally, customers will not be required to submit a claim in order to receive their refunds. Current AT&T customers will automatically receive a credit to their bills and former customers will receive refund checks for the amount they are owed.
Andrew Smith, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, had this to say regarding the ruling:
“AT&T promised unlimited data—without qualification—and failed to deliver on that promise. While it seems obvious, it bears repeating that Internet providers must tell people about any restrictions on the speed or amount of data promised.”
As part of the settlement, AT&T is now permanently required to “prominently and clearly disclose any restrictions related to its speed or amount of mobile data,” the FTC said via statement.
Roommates, what are your thoughts on this?
