AT&T Is Paying $7.75 Million in Refunds and Fines Over Sham Calls (fortune.com) 38
AT&T will pay $7.75 million after a federal investigation found it allowed unauthorized third-party charges on its customers' telephone bills, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said Monday, reports Reuters (via Fortune). From the report: The company allowed "scammers to charge customers approximately $9 per month for a sham directory assistance service," the FCC said Monday. The fraud was uncovered by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration while investigating two Ohio companies for drug-related crimes and money laundering, the FCC said. The settlement includes $6.8 million in refunds and a $950,000 federal fine, the FCC said. AT&T signed a consent decree with the FCC and agreed to cease billing for nearly all third-party products and services on landline bills and adopt procedures to obtain express consent from customers prior to allowing third-party charges. The company also agreed to revise its billing practices to ensure third-party charges are conspicuously identified on bills.
Cequint: Another sham (Score:1)
Another sham both AT&T and Verizon seem to do is to charge you for Cequint's caller ID software even if you cancel the free trial.
Stealing pays (Score:1)
"The settlement includes $6.8 million in refunds and a $950,000 federal fine"
So stealing is worth it as long as you get away with it 0.950 / (6.8 + 0.950) = 12% of the time
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GetAway*$6.8 - (100-GetAway)*0.95=0
GetAway*6.8=
GetAway*7.75=95
GetAway=12.25806 times
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So the more they cheat, the more likely they will make money on this....
Your Sig is on-topic here, as well.
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Actually if the interest they made on having 6.8 million for x number of years outweighs the fine, they might of made a profit even after the fine.
Only took em 30 years to get caught... (Score:3, Insightful)
...committing blatant & obvious fraud on a nationwide level.
The law never sleeps!
WooHoo! I win another quarter for the slot machine (Score:1)
This refund... another sham, amirite? Just some chump change to these guys.
Tricks of the Mouth (Score:5, Interesting)
We've had the experience whereby we order a new service or discount program. The AT&T "operator" starts talking fast and rattling off obscure names and words. When we ask for clarification, the operator just changes the subject, or says, "one second, let me check on something". Then a month and a half later, strange fees start showing up on our bill. After giving us the transfer run-around, we finally ask to have the fees removed. The "operator" says, "Sorry, they must have gotten there by accident".
I suspect these "operators" get a cut of any add-on service they sell, and thus have an incentive to stick you with a service using well-honed tricks of the mouth. In case the conversation is recorded, they have their "sloppy talk" as an excuse. In the end, it's "just a misunderstanding".
Why are all their "misunderstandings" in THEIR favor and not ours?
If there truly is a hell, these "operators" will roast crispy and crunchy (along with the managers who know about it and do nothing).
It's not the operator's fault (Score:3, Informative)
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Although not a call-center, I've been in ugly situations during recessions, so I can relate.
It's why something like a union would be nice: if you have evidence of being pressured into deceiving customers by your manager(s), you could report it without risk of being terminated. If it's likely to turn into word against word, then other employees
Re:Tricks of the Mouth (Score:5, Interesting)
When we ask for clarification, the operator just changes the subject, or says, "one second, let me check on something". Then a month and a half later, strange fees start showing up on our bill.
One scam I've encountered before, and I'm not saying AT&T does this but other companies do, is they'll record your entire phone call. When they say "one second, let me check on something" and you reply with something like "that's fine," now they have a recording of you saying "that's fine." If you challenge the charges later on, they dig up the recorded phone call and someone spends a couple minutes stitching it together so it sounds like you said "that's fine" after they asked "Would you like to order $EXPENSIVE_SERVICE?"
I'm very leery of saying any affirmative phrases ("OK", "yes," "sure") over the phone unless I initiated the call or I know the other party.
~$8 million (Score:3)
Sham legal justice (Score:5, Insightful)
If you and I did this through some business we owned, we would be charged with a dozen felonies. The prosecutor would have a field day over the fact that we obscured the nature of the charges to make it look like our legitimate business charges and did nothing to guarantee the charges were legitimate. Bottom line, we would go to jail.
AT&T? A fine so small that it is a rounding error on their SEC filings. And certainly not a hint of any criminal prosecution.
This is sham justice. AT&T should have been fined 10x the gross revenue they received from this little scam. The executives in charge of managing this scam should have been jailed for fraud, possibly even as co-conspirators in whatever drug investigation caused the DEA to find this operation.
They could have sent a message that said if you want to skim the cream with your billing operation, great, but make sure the billing is 100% legitimate or you will be held accountable for fraud.
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The only reason this got caught was because of a drug bust. I say it's really a money laundering scheme for drug kingpins. Isn't that life in prison?
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I would actually guess that they took out a phone number for the bust, tried to figure out what this charge was and told the DOJ who tracked it down. Basically, federal bureaucracy at work.
Not if you set your corporations up right (Score:2)
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My dad knew a guy at church* who would open a furniture store, screw the customers, file bankruptcy, reopen a similar store under a relative's name, screw the customer, file bankruptcy, rinse, repeat until after 7 years where the original owner is no longer liable for the bankruptcy, and starts the cycle again.
If you can a
Re: (Score:1)
I suspect they are repressed, and when they "slip", they slip big and heavy because bottled up emotion overwhelms them.
What the hell (Score:3, Informative)
Whenever somebody tells you "Gov't's not the solution, it's the problem" check their credentials. They probably hail from a right wing think tank funded by a billionaire.
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The problem is that I don't think shady business practices are an enforcement priority, period. David Horowitz's "Fight Back" consumer TV show went on the air in 1976, and Consumer Reports has been publishing longer than that. 60 Minutes used to be famous for their on-camera ambush of fraudulent business before they became a talk show for the Geritol set.
American commerce is chock full of hucksters, scammers and flim-flam artists that get away with all kinds of shady practices that if pulled off by indivi
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They inundate consumers with options, purchasing plans, agreements, contracts, and all sorts of unnecessary business models designed to overwhelm consumers- none of which is necessarily fraudulent.
I would argue that any deliberate attempt to confuse or overwhelm customers, especially with low-value and high cost options, is prima facie fraud because it's done to prevent consumers from making rational choices and represents trickery designed to sell products people don't need or don't understand.
I also think that sellers go out of there way to create false choices and use obscure language in a deliberate attempt to eliminate product comparisons and reduce the perception of choice and competition and c
Re: (Score:2)
Look at American history. Where does the term "snake-oil salesman" come from? We have been a culture of hucksters and scammers for 240 years.
Look at products like our soda giants, Coke and Pepsi. Both were started as "health remedies".
Maybe pharmacists and doctors actually thought these were some miracle health drug, but I am going to guess that took a back seat when they realized people enjoyed drinking these things.
AT&T landline IS a highly regulated utility (Score:2)
Quoting TFA for you:
were billing thousands of consumers for a monthly directory assistance service on their AT&T landline telephone bills.
> To classify them as public utilities, with strict regulation. State level - where the PSCs already exist...
Let the Feds watch the PSCs for corruption.
That's precisely how they ARE classified and regulated. So you're suggesting we keep treating them as we have been treating them, so they keep doing what they've been doing. As opposed to most any other business,
Wow (Score:2)
AT&T is a sham? Wow!