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Lawsuit accuses AT&T of inflating iPhone, iPad data usage
A new class action lawsuit accuses AT&T of "systematically overcharging" iPhone and iPad users for data usage. Suspecting foul play, AT&T customer Patrick Hendricks and his lawyers hired an independent tech consultant who conducted a four-month study that determined AT&T inflates data consumption figures by an average of 7% to 14% and sometimes as much as 300%.
In an interview with MSNBC, attorney Barry Davis likened the discovery to a rigged gas pump that only dispenses 9/10's of a gallon. Davis said the researchers recorded discrepancies that bloated every single data transaction. Affected users may only pay an extra $10 or $15 per month, but that's big money when you multiply it by as many as 20 million iPhone and iPad owners.
In addition to overestimating legitimate data transactions, the suit accuses AT&T of so-called "phantom charges." The tech firm reportedly purchased a spanking new iPhone and disabled everything that might trigger data usage. After letting the handset sit on but unused for 10 days, it supposedly accumulated charges for 35 different transactions totaling nearly 3,000KB.
The tests also found that AT&T doesn't always record the correct time and date of data usage, causing some transactions to appear on the wrong bill. It's unclear how much cash AT&T might be making off the unscrupulous billing, but the suit didn't hesitate to note that the company's wireless data revenues increased by $1.1 billion on-year in the fourth quarter of 2010.
The carrier has responded to the allegations by saying that they are "without merit" and reflect a "misunderstanding of how data is consumed and billed." AT&T blamed some of the overages on applications that run in the background or those that are automatically updated. For instance, less tech-savvy users might not realize that features such as push notifications count toward their data limit.
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User Comments (22)
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princeton
on May 19, 2011 7:04 PM |
Is anyone really surprised? |
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Win7Dev
on May 19, 2011 7:31 PM |
Princeton said: Is anyone really surprised? No. |
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tonylukac
on May 19, 2011 8:25 PM |
I thought ATT got class action lawsuits abolished by the supreme court. Just in the nick of time. |
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Guest
on May 19, 2011 8:41 PM |
I had an original iPhone as a house phone that sat dormant for weeks, just sitting on the cherger collecting voice messages. No internet use what so ever... Since all of my bills are auto deducted & I rarely looked at the bill... when I did I flipped. AT7T had all kind of use charges, etc. In a 4 month period I made zero outgoing phone calls and zero text... my bill was $40 more than I had agreed upon. I canceled that day! All the CEO's are theives. (On the same note... I wrote a check wrong for CC was off on the due amount by $0.50 cents... 2 months later my interest rate goes from 4% to 29%... lol. ) Wall Street are crooks & thieves..... |
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gwailo247
on May 19, 2011 9:44 PM |
clever strategy. Get people used to unlimited then yank the rug out from under them. |
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Archean
on May 19, 2011 11:32 PM |
Guest said: Wall Street are crooks & thieves..... That is not a news any more. In fact, they have run out of targets in US, so now they are pressuring China through their stooges in Washington to open up its financial markets so they can put their ugly dirty hands on their roughly 10,800B$ savings/assets etc. Although I don't see them succeeding. Anyway back to topic, I hope if they are found guilty they are punished in such a way that no one else would dare rob their customers again (wishful thinking?). |
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Royalgok
on May 20, 2011 12:36 AM |
Now the question is, is this limited to AT&T? |
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LinkedKube
on May 20, 2011 4:24 AM |
royalgok said: Now the question is, is this limited to AT&T? Probably not but I pay an extra 50 dollars just because my droid is considered a smart phone. |
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Zecias
on May 20, 2011 4:48 AM |
Win7Dev said: Princeton said: Is anyone really surprised? No. i second that |
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mosu
on May 20, 2011 6:07 AM |
Let me tell you a short story: A couple of years ago a phone company in my country charged me with a fee even I wasn't ever using the subscription. After two months, the said phone company had over 300 less subscriptions in my neighborhood, because of me.Please try this at home!...unless you're hooked to a single provider. |
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Guest
on May 20, 2011 6:46 AM |
I had att,since 2007 without problems and on december of 2010 i started getting extremely hi bills for like 500 a month which i never paid. When you look at the bill, has a bunch of bogus charges. looking at the headlines, im joining this lawsuit. Do not go to att !!! Theres plenty of unimited choices these days. |
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Guest
on May 20, 2011 7:00 AM |
Since now they are making big money by the amount of data you use...shouldn't they be checked by some independent hardware and company like gas pumps are....Glad they discovered this...I mean you just take them for their word that they are accurate...but these are greedy corporations and they never have enough money.... |
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Guest
on May 20, 2011 8:12 AM |
Did you ask AT&T for the itemization of these transactions? |
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Guest
on May 20, 2011 8:23 AM |
I think the most logical thing would be to ask AT&T for the itemization of the bill. Data traffic has overage, and, for example, if you have 300MBit DSL, your speed is lower than that, this is well known fact and expected. And indeed with the tendency of today's software to spy on user, call home, self-update, and God knows what else, only naive can expect zero traffic when you don 't touch the phone. There were even rumors that government is spying on everyone via their phone even when the phone is turned off; however conspiracy this sounds, it can't be completely written off. I think the only clean possibility to ensure zero traffic would be to remove its battery and to put the phone in a metal box. |
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Guest
on May 20, 2011 8:29 AM |
What this article doesn't mention is that the phantom charges happen even when the phones are connected via WiFi at home. |
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Appzalien
on May 20, 2011 8:48 AM |
This is the same AT&T that asked the government to let them discontinue hard wired telephone service. Sure there are a lot of people out there that depend more on cellular than wired, but that's just what they want. Once they get rid of the hard wired telephone pole system, they have an excuse to not spend money on upgrading that infrastucture (it's falling apart now and they don't fix it) and spend all their money on the infrastucture that lets them steal and overcharge. If Americans were smart, they would drop their cellular service for a few years and go back to wired and screw AT&T real good. Unfortunately Americans are not smart, their dependent, like sheep. |
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peperonikiller
on May 20, 2011 8:55 AM |
Appzalien said: This is the same AT&T that asked the government to let them discontinue hard wired telephone service. Sure there are a lot of people out there that depend more on cellular than wired, but that's just what they want. Once they get rid of the hard wired telephone pole system, they have an excuse to not spend money on upgrading that infrastucture (it's falling apart now and they don't fix it) and spend all their money on the infrastucture that lets them steal and overcharge. If Americans were smart, they would drop their cellular service for a few years and go back to wired and screw AT&T real good. Unfortunately Americans are not smart, their dependent, like sheep. you sir, are not smart. |
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johntom2000
on May 20, 2011 11:01 AM |
Its just like them putting a cap on their DSL. I had unlimted for years now we are all getting the short end of the stick. |
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example1013
on May 20, 2011 11:26 AM |
zecias said: Win7Dev said: Princeton said: Is anyone really surprised? No. i second that Thirded. |
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howzz1854
on May 20, 2011 7:04 PM |
FRRRAAAKKKK!!... this is exactly why we shouldn't let them merge with T-Mobile. there'll be more and more things like this happening with less competition. |
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Guest
on September 14, 2011 10:53 PM |
Doesn't surprise me. They tried to bill me hundreds because they said I was using my phone in Mexico. I called in the first couple of times and told them I lived less than 5 minutes from the border and they cancelled the charges, but it continued for months. Finally I told them to f off When they tried to collect, I got them to stop. When they tried to put it on my credit report, I got it removed. |
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Guest
on November 15, 2011 7:11 PM |
I wonder how much they make on unused data that you pay for but never use on your iPad? How can they legally charge you for it and not either refund you or let you accumulate it on your account? |
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