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Nearly 3 million customers compensated for being billed for unauthorised third-party services.
AT&T has paid out $88 million in refunds to mobile customers who were billed for unauthorised third-party services.
Called ‘cramming’, the practice sees an operator add charges for subscriptions to premium-rate services – such as wallpapers, ringtones, and SMS services – to customers’ bills, even though they never knowingly signed up to them. These services tend to cost about $10 per month, and the operator takes a cut of the fee.
In a statement on Thursday, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said AT&T will refund 2.5 million customers in the form of a credit on their phone bill, while 300,000 former customers will receive compensation in the form of a check.
It is the largest sum of money ever returned to consumers in a mobile cramming case, the FTC said.
"AT&T received a high volume of complaints related to mobile cramming prior to the FTC and other federal and state agencies stepping in on consumers’ behalf," said FTC chairwoman Edith Ramirez. "I am pleased that consumers are now being refunded their money and that AT&T has changed its mobile billing practices."
The average refund amount is $31.
The refund programme announced this week relates to the $105 million paid by AT&T in October 2014 to settle a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) investigation into alleged cramming.
T-Mobile US was also accused of cramming in July 2014. The operator refuted the FTC’s accusation at the time, but paid $90 million to settle the case in December.
