AT&T Sued for Lying, Overcharging

[JBeukema]

Ars Technica details how a law firm measured charges in preparation for the class action lawsuit. The suit claims that users are charged data at odd hours of the night when the phone is not in use, calling these phantom charges. On average, usage was 7% to 14% above actual usage. If you legitimately use 1.9 GB of data in a billing cycle, 7% will push you over a 2-GB limit incurring an overage charge. To ensure the phantom charges were real, engineers that were hired by the firm set up a fresh iPhone with no push notifications, no email accounts configured, and all location services disabled. They basically stuck it in a desk for 10 days and then checked the billing. AT&T showed 35 instances of data transfers

AT&T Sued For Overbilling Data Usage - hardware Blog