According to a report coming out of the Associated Press this afternoon, it appears that the FTC is saying T-Mobile has been charging customers hundreds of millions in bogus charges. Now this is quite surprising, and definitely not something T-Mobile wanted to be caught doing. As their whole mantra has been getting rid of fees and being straight up with their customers. And this is definitely the opposite of that. John Legere has worked hard to turn this carrier around, and has been pretty successful, but if this report is indeed true, this could really hurt Magenta.
We don’t have much information right now from the Associated Press. But if T-Mobile was indeed charging customers -knowingly – bogus charges, then it’s not going to make a bunch of their new customers less happy about switching over the Uncarrier. What will be interesting though is to see how John Legere explains these bogus charges. I’d still like some more information about these so called bogus charges though. Because I’m sure T-Mobile isn’t the only carrier to do this, but they are the only ones to be caught so far.
That’s about all the information we have on this so far, but we’ll be sure to let everyone know once we learn more about this report and what these charges actually are that T-Mobile has been charging to customers. It’s said that it was hundreds of millions in charges, so it’s not some little fee – well it could be, but they do have nearly 50 million customers. How many of you are shocked to hear this about T-Mobile? We do believe it because it is coming from the Associated Press which is not known for posting bogus stories. But we’ll need to keep an eye on this one for everyone. What does everyone think about this report?
Update: T-Mobile have released a statement about the FTC lawsuit:
Our Reaction to the FTC Lawsuit
We have seen the complaint filed today by the FTC and find it to be unfounded and without merit. In fact T-Mobile stopped billing for these Premium SMS services last year and launched a proactive program to provide full refunds for any customer that feels that they were charged for something they did not want. T-Mobile is fighting harder than any of the carriers to change the way the wireless industry operates and we are disappointed that the FTC has chosen to file this action against the most pro-consumer company in the industry rather than the real bad actors.
As the Un-carrier, we believe that customers should only pay for what they want and what they sign up for. We exited this business late last year, and announced an aggressive program to take care of customers and we are disappointed that the FTC has instead chosen to file this sensationalized legal action. We are the first to take action for the consumer and I am calling for the entire industry to do the same.
This is about doing what is right for consumers and we put in place procedures to protect our customers from unauthorized charges. Unfortunately, not all of these third party providers acted responsibly–an issue the entire industry faced. We believe those providers should be held accountable, and the FTC’s lawsuit seeking to hold T-Mobile responsible for their acts is not only factually and legally unfounded, but also misdirected.
— John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile USA