from the a-nation-of-wrist-slaps dept
In 2014 the FTC sued AT&T for promoting “limitless” wi-fi information plans with very actual and annoying limits.
The lawsuit famous that, beginning in 2011, AT&T started promoting “limitless” plans that really throttled upwards of 90 % of your downstream speeds after utilizing simply two or three gigabytes of information. AT&T spent years making an attempt to wiggle out of the lawsuit by way of quite a lot of authorized gymnastics.
In late 2019, AT&T lastly agreed to a $60 million settlement with the FTC with out truly admitting any wrongdoing. Shoppers who have been lied to and ripped off for years have been imagined to get $12 every. It’s now 2023, and AT&T’s nonetheless looking for the entire clients AT&T lied to more than a decade ago:
Present subscribers got a credit score on their accounts and lots of former subscribers have been mailed refund checks. Now AT&T is working to disburse the remaining $7 million to former clients it didn’t have contact data for.
Don’t pull a muscle or something. U.S. residents who have been AT&T “limitless” clients between October 1, 2011 and June 30, 2015 can file a claim with the FTC. Simply keep in mind to not spend it multi function place.
The pathetic payout might have been worse had AT&T succeeded in flinging these of us towards binding arbitration, a system marketed as more practical than class actions regardless of being demonstrably even more lopsided and pathetic. AT&T’s 2010 Supreme Court victory ensured that forcing clients into binding arbitration utilizing mouse print legalese is now acceptable commonplace apply for corporations nationwide.
Wi-fi carriers have been promoting “limitless” plans after which mendacity about their very actual limits for the higher a part of twenty years now. Many are still doing it and can proceed to do it. Why? The penalty is at all times a tiny, tiny, fraction of the cash earned by being deceptive. The one actual lesson right here for AT&T is that stalling and litigation can simply blunt accountability for deceptive or predatory enterprise practices.
Since this case began, AT&T has additionally had a really profitable run gutting most FCC oversight through the Trump administration (together with well-liked internet neutrality guidelines), making certain the corporate’s much less seemingly than ever to be held meaningfully accountable for its extremely detailed history of mendacity to and ripping off its own customers (and the government).
Filed Below: broadband, ftc, network management, throttling, unlimited, wireless
Corporations: at&t
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