Wireless and the Law: February 2008 Archives
Florida, Attorney General Bill McCollum today announced that AT&T Mobility will be the first wireless company in the nation to police representations made in internet advertising for cell phone content to ensure fair and full disclosure. The company will also make full restitution to Florida consumers who were unknowingly billed for "free" cell phone content.
The cooperative agreement reached by the Attorney General's CyberFraud Task Force with AT&T Mobility will establish a new model for the advertising and billing of cell phone content. Additionally, AT&T Mobility will pay $2.5 million to the Attorney General's Office to fund the efforts of the task force as it continues to press for similar reform across the industry and will contribute an additional $500,000 toward consumer education on safe internet use.
"Consumers should never be billed for services they thought were free of charge," said Attorney General Bill McCollum. "Today's agreement establishes a precedent for wireless companies accepting responsibility for the way cell phone content is advertised on the internet and the manner in which charges are passed along to consumers. AT&T should be commended for being the first wireless company in the industry to offer this reform."
Complaints received by the Attorney General's CyberFraud Task Force led to an investigation which showed that thousands of Florida AT&T Mobility consumers had received charges on their cell phone bills for certain third party services that they did not authorize. Often, these charges were for ringtones or other services which were advertised as "free," but resulted in customers unwittingly being signed up for costly monthly subscriptions for third-party content, including horoscopes, wallpaper and other cell phone-related content.
Examples of the bill charges often appear under the following indiscernible names:
- "Direct Bill Charges""
- "3rd Party Downloadable Content"
- "Premium SMS Messages"
- "Premium Text Messages"
- "M-Qube"
- "M-blox"
